Google Chrome OS

[gshaw]

The old thread for this was dead so thought I'd start this one

Just been reading the discussions and article comments about the whole Chrome OS hype and it's interesting to see all the different arguements for \ against it...

- on the desktop its app support will be too weak for power users
- relying on pure web apps very risky, at power of your ISP
- aimed at basic users it would do well i.e. the Facebook, camera phone etc crowd
- netbook to be seen as a basic appliance, just click and turn on

Looks like those arguements could run and run, Windows vs Linux and so on but here's the question I'm wondering...

Someone mentioned about Google shoving ads down the OS then a reply came back saying Android doesn't have any... fair point. So thinking about it...

- netbook supplier... tiny profit margins on the hardware
- Chrome OS... licensed to the hardware manufacturers for free
- GMail, Google apps... free for use

Where's the money coming in from to justify the ongoing dev and updates? If there's no ads on the OS and web apps main draw is the lack of software licensing costs there's no real revenue stream if the ads are minimal \ non existent on the apps \ OS?

Or is it part of the cunning plan to suck you in then charge for it all after

[Theblacksheep]

Where's the money coming in from to justify the ongoing dev and updates? If there's no ads on the OS and web apps main draw is the lack of software licensing costs there's no real revenue stream if the ads are minimal \ non existent on the apps \ OS?

Money?

They can take a hit in order to get a foothold. However this will be an advertising OS and I think thats where the money is from.


I'll wait for and SRware version!

[tmcd35]

Google makes all it's money out of advertising. The majority of this advertising is displayed with your search results, but also context sensitive with your apps in google mail and google docs (sponsored links to the right of the page).

If you are using the Google OS then you'll odds on be searching with google, using Gmail and google docs.

They can afford to give the OS away for free, without direct advertising on the OS, because you will be viewing all ths ads soon enough in search, docs, gmail, etc. In fact I'd go as far as to say the OS will guarrantee that you use these google services to view the ads.

Funny, this stratgey didn't work for Microsoft!

[jamesb]

Google makes all it's money out of advertising. The majority of this advertising is displayed with your search results, but also context sensitive with your apps in google mail and google docs (sponsored links to the right of the page).

Advertising and data. Don't forget the data.

[DaveP]

Link: The Google Chrome OS Press Event

Also: Releasing The Chromium OS Open Source Project

[Old_Skool]

Don't forget - nothing is free. If you are storing data up in google docs or pages on google sites - they are scanning that information. They don't care about you so to speak as in monitoring what information (data) is whose --- but as a huge conglomeration to be mined for trends - key words - topics - popularity - etc.

That aside - I see Chrome as a competitor to MS which is a good thing (just like AMD forces Intel to stay on its toes). And yes as mentioned Google can make Chrome very affordable - even a money looser to gain a foot hold. And while its proposed to be totally cloud based --- I don't think everyone is ready for that yet. I bet you'll see a minimal a Chrome OS embedded on a moderate SSD on the motherboard. And I suspect you'll see a "free cloud" where they can mine the data -- plus a "subscription cloud" with privacy etc.