The party’s in full swing today on Google Chrome OS bashing – it seems that the blogosphere took cues from Steven Hodson yesterday, and multiple bloggers are attempting to advance the theory that Chrome OS is going to fail, and fail hard.

Randall Kennedy has a long screed on why Google Chrome OS will fail at Infoworld. Not just any kind of fail, but BIG TIME FAIL. Not to be outdone, Computerworld blogger Tony Bradley has Five Reasons the Google Chrome OS will Flop.

Of course, Patricio Robles at the Econsultancy blog had to go one better (well, seven better to be exact) with 12 reasons Chrome OS will fail.

There were several fail-whalers that didn’t list exactly how many reasons why it’s going to fail, but there were plenty: Taylor Buley from Forbes, Rob Diana at Regular Geek, and James A. Robertson at Industry Rants (he called Chrome stillborn, people).

I’ve read these posts, so you don’t have to. The reasons why Google Chrome OS is supposedly the biggest fail since Greedo shooting first are wide and varied, but having read all the reasons, I can tell you that everyone’s wrong.  Unequivocally. All the arguments seem to be grasping at straws and they all rest on one simple and (as we’ve discussed many many times) mistaken assumption: This is a shot across the bow of Microsoft and Apple.

Sing It With Me Now: This Isn’t an OS War

Ben Parr over at Mashable was the only pundit brave enough explicitly to trot out the largely discredited position that this was a play at Windows.

With the Google Revenue Equation in mind, it’s easier to understand Google’s primary motivations for creating an OS based entirely off the browser. The more time we spend browsing the web, the more money Google makes. It’s that simple. Thus, Google’s primary goal is to get us on the web more.

That’s exactly what Chrome OS does: its interface is 100% web, thus you are always browsing if you’re using Chrome OS. Every app is a web app. Plus, Chrome OS loads in seconds, getting you on the web faster.

In order for Google to accomplish its goal of getting us on the web more, it has to eliminate time sinks and anything that distracts someone from surfing the web on the computer. Thus, one of Google’s goals is to destroy the desktop.

It makes perfect sense, as long as you ignore the mountain of common sense logic that opposes that.

As we’ve said many times before, the netbook market isn’t the most attractive market for most OS vendors.  Apple is allergic to cheap, and Microsoft isn’t fond of continually extending the end of life date for XP. Sure, Windows 7 runs great on horribly old machines, but not as good as it does on a well spec’d machine.

Microsoft isn’t interested in losing money supporting an old operating system, and Apple isn’t ready to become the Walmart of computers – so why, exactly, does it in any way make sense that they’re worried about what could still be a very popular operating system?

This Isn’t Rocket Science, It’s Simple Statistics

As I’ve said many times, only 70% of the North American public has access to a personal computing device. That leaves 158,616,176 potential users for a Google product that could effectively be the cheapest computer ever mass produced.

Cheap.  We’re talking theoretically $150, which incidentally is cheaper than what you can buy the famed “$100 Laptop” for.

You’re telling me that Google and their partner vendors don’t have an incentive to move 158,616,176 $150 machines? In case you’re really bad at math, that could theoretically be a $23 billion market.  And that wouldn’t include one single Microsoft or Apple customer, nor does it touch the dollar figure that Google makes from selling ads against those people’s time online.

To the pundits, I now say: can we move on now and do some real analysis?  Just curious.

158,616,176 Reasons Why Google Chrome OS Won’t Fail is a post from: The SiliconANGLE

12 Comments

• At November 20, 2009, The Problem with Being Right…- Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins wrote:

  [...] Take for instance my post today on Google Chrome. [...]

• At November 20, 2009, Google Chrome OS – the morning after still has people not get it wrote:

  [...] 158,616,176 Reasons Why Google Chrome OS Won’t Fail – SiliconAngle That leaves 158,616,176 potential users for a Google product that could effectively be the cheapest computer ever mass produced. [...]

• At November 20, 2009, Fernando Soteras wrote:

  Good point.I don't understand the fuss about google os machines not been a general purpouse Pc. In fact we could say that we are in the middle of a "cambric explosion" of specialized computers ( ejemplos: video consoles , 3g cell phones etc).

  At least this google platfrom promises decent screen sizes (for a portable system , that is).

• At November 20, 2009, Bruno Bernardino wrote:

  Well, finally someone understood the concept right…

  This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

• At November 20, 2009, gprisament wrote:

  Does anyone else think that Twitter-based comment sections are just plain broken:158,616,176 reasons why Google Chrome OS won’t fail @SiliconANGLE. http://bit.ly/7TDjDp

  158,616,176 reasons why Google Chrome OS won’t fail @SiliconANGLE. http://bit.ly/7TDjDp

  158,616,176 reasons why Google Chrome OS won’t fail @SiliconANGLE. http://bit.ly/7TDjDp

  … ad infinitum

  This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

• At November 20, 2009, rizzn wrote:

  It’s a P2 based theme.It operates just like Google reader. j/k go up and down the page, hit r to reply to a post. No Twitter needed.

  Twitter comments are pulled in via Backtype.

  This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

• At November 20, 2009, Around The Interwebs with (jeff)isageek – November 20th | (jeff)isageek.net wrote:

  [...] Shared 158,616,176 Reasons Why Google Chrome OS Won’t Fail. [...]

• At November 20, 2009, rizzn wrote:

  Actually, just go to the page and hit ‘?’… full instructions there.

  This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

• At November 21, 2009, SuezanneC Baskerville wrote:

  One hundred, not one fifty. Everything needs to cost a hundred or less.

• At November 21, 2009, What Is Google Chrome OS And Why Does It Matter? « Plugged In Lawyer wrote:

  [...] there are some who think that Google is pushing its new OS simply to tap into the market of consumers waiting for cheap computers, I am personally somebody who can’t wait to tell the cell phone companies to take their [...]

• At November 21, 2009, rick wrote:

  Stipulating you 158m figure... if they don't have a computer now, in 2009, why will ChromeOS change that? If it's money... are yo ureally saying that they won't spend $400 for a PC now, but will spend $100-150 for a ChromeOS netbook that needs an always on broadband connection ($400-$600 per year) if it's to be useful? That's illogical - no one who's so price sensitive that they can't buy a $400 PC will start spending $40-$50 per month for broadband access to use a $150 PC. And before you go on about 3G.... just don't. There's no way the trailing section of the adoption curve is going to be ahead of the game on adopting mobile technology.

• At November 21, 2009, Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins wrote:

  Very simple - $100-150 is the pricepoint at which a gadget becomes an impulse purchase. Very few people can claim they're able to make a $400 impulse purchase, but the $60-150 range (depending on the part of the country) is very often the point at which an impulse purchase can be made. (do a quick Google on "$100 impulse purchase" - you'll find tons of writeups on the topic).

  As for the broadband connection - over half the US has available to it broadband prices clocking in at around $150 a year - but even that seems high... because most of us don't think of broadband prices in per-year terms.

  When people think about it in terms of $10-15 a month, it suddenly becomes very affordable. That's 15 McDonalds double cheeseburgers. That's affordable, both psychologically and in actuality.

Related Posts

• October 28, 2009 -- Gizmodo notes incredulously: Chrome OS i… (2)
• November 19, 2009 -- Chrome OS Isn’t an Anti-Microsoft, Anti-Apple Play [Gratuitous Backpatting] (4)
• November 19, 2009 -- Google Chrome Cloud OS for Netbooks and Beyond – Google Chrome OS (3)
• November 18, 2009 -- Agenda for FTC Workshop of Fate of Journalism Features Murdoch and Huffington (1)
• November 16, 2009 -- Mobile Monday: Mobile App News for Week of November 9th (0)

Teaser from John’s quick podcast with Sergey Brin at the Chrome OS event today.

John: “What is your vision for the cloud?”

Sergey: “I think whether you’re an enterprise or an individual, it rarely makes sense for you to have your own buildings, fiber cables and infrastructure.  It takes a lot of time and effort to maintain.”

“Ultimately, your resources are available to you wherever you are, and you want those things there. There’s an economy of scale that makes that easier and more powerful because there’s a lot of interoperability that’s not otherwise possible.”

“There’s less time-burn in managing your digital life.”

Download the MP3 of the clip here or play it via the embed below.

Google Founder Sergey Brin’s Vision on the Cloud is a post from: The SiliconANGLE

1 Comments

• At November 19, 2009, Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins wrote:

  Post updated with correct MP3 file in player.

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… subtitled: I, like my friend John Furrier, Was Right About Chrome OS

In case you’ve forgotten, I’m here to remind you of all the dire predictions, which in my estimation were probably made to garner more pageviews and TV appearances, that Google was intending to compete head on with the big boys (Microsoft and Apple) in the operating system market with the release of Chrome OS.

Yes, I’m talking about CNet’s Tom Krazit, TheNextWeb’s Zee,ZD’s Mary Jo Foley, Mashable’s Ben Parr, Fake Steve Jobs, and of course the loudest of them all, Techcrunch’s MG Siegler.

All of these pundits predicted loudly, both on their blogs and on national cable television, that Google had just fired a shot across the bow of Microsoft and Apple, and that the hot war was officially on.

As you may or may not remember, I went in to laborious detail as to why these pundits were wrong, and that this wasn’t a play at the big dogs (you can refresh here, here and here).

The short version is, though, that the Internet has plenty of room left to grow, particularly at the lower income end of the spectrum. These devices that Chrome OS is designed to run on are in a realm that generally isn’t profitable for Microsoft and Apple to exploit, and it is profitable for Google to do so.

This Perspective Was Validated Today

As you probably picked up on from John’s three posts from this morning (here, here and here), the Google Chrome OS was officially unveiled this morning.

One of the things I noticed was a lot of the questioners there in the briefing were picking around on the carcass of that dead angle – that this was a play at Microsoft and higher end machines.

I’ve picked through on a few choice quotes from the presenters that show that their intentions were otherwise.

“We’re focused on user needs, not strategies as far as competing with other companies.” – Sergey Brin.

“We’re not focused on expanding out Google Chrome OS to other hardware types. This is not an operating system for full featured laptops, we’re focused on this specific set.”

In other words, some times an operating system is just an operating system.

The Numbers Support This Theory as Well

  There are tons of users throughout the world that, due to economic condition, can’t afford the typical non-netbook $1000 computing device. The rise in popularity of the netbook is a testament to this fact, but the truth is that hardware manufacturers aren’t getting rich off this trend – one of the biggest non-hardware expenses for building the machine is the OEM license for XP or Win7.  An XP license will probably cost between $30-70 (depending on the clout of the manufacturer), and the price of the machine can range between $300-700, making the license a full 10% of the device price.

In the end, this 10% may or may not be an incredible influencing factor for the end user, but it will entice more hardware manufacturers to focus on their netbook lines more intensely, which will eventually drive down both manufacturing costs through scale and competition.

The end result is a cheaper machine that manufacturers can actually profit from.

This, in turn, benefits Google by increasing usership of the web, as well as giving end users a greater propensity for trusting Google with their cloud app usage over other providers.

Again, this doesn’t really hurt Microsoft at all – they’re not in the XP business and they don’t want to be. Apple could care less, too – the day they sell a computing device for less than $700 is the day Steve Jobs turns in his turtleneck for flannel.

We’ll Be Watching the Pundits Closely Today

I’ll be curious as to how many pundits will be recanting their earlier statements or if they’ll persist in pushing forward this false narrative that this is somehow the start of the “Great OS Wars.”

A lot of the pundits I’ve mentioned pushing this theory forward are folks I count amongst my friends and my talented peers in the tech blogging world.  That doesn’t change the fact that they were dead wrong on this one, and for that I’ll continue holding their feet to the flame on it.

Chrome OS Isn’t an Anti-Microsoft, Anti-Apple Play [Gratuitous Backpatting] is a post from: The SiliconANGLE

4 Comments

• At November 19, 2009, Google Chrome OS – so is it worth all the fuss? (Round-up) wrote:

  [...] that runs web apps DVICE: Google Chrome OS revealed, won’t be ready for a year SiliconAngle: Chrome OS Isn’t an Anti-Microsoft, Anti-Apple Play [Gratuitous Backpatting] The Next Web: Chrome OS Still A Year Away – Screenshots and First Information VentureBeat: Google [...]

• At November 19, 2009, naturelover wrote:

  I am very much satisfied with the research work being constantly carried out by Google from time to time. I am awaiting to wait to test with Chrome OS. As intimated above, if it is official, I will check it to use it fully to watch the war between the internet czars.

• At November 20, 2009, CobWEBs Daily Edition – ChromeOS a road to free computers, and Techmeme still sucks - SeanPAune.com wrote:

  [...] Shooting at Bubbles Google Chrome OS – so is it worth all the fuss? (Round-up) – The Inquisitr Chrome OS Isn’t an Anti-Microsoft, Anti-Apple Play [Gratuitous Backpatting] – SiliconAngle Google ChromeOS on Techmeme What ChromeOS Means For Netbooks And Why Microsoft [...]

• At November 21, 2009, Tsahi Levent-Levi wrote:

  To me, Google Chrome OS is all about ownership of the desktop.

  While they are not threatening Apple or Microsoft now, they eventually will.

  The only growing segment of PCs being sold today is netbooks - not desktop and not laptops. Stands to reason that a new OS would target this niche, which is new, growing and that current competitors have no good answer for.

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• November 20, 2009 -- 158,616,176 Reasons Why Google Chrome OS Won’t Fail (12)
• October 28, 2009 -- Gizmodo notes incredulously: Chrome OS i… (2)
• November 19, 2009 -- Google Chrome Cloud OS for Netbooks and Beyond – Google Chrome OS (3)
• November 18, 2009 -- Agenda for FTC Workshop of Fate of Journalism Features Murdoch and Huffington (1)
• November 16, 2009 -- Mobile Monday: Mobile App News for Week of November 9th (0)