Google’s Promised OS Offers Potential & Pitfalls
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Google’s announcement of its new Chrome operating system, due to debut in the second half of next year, almost instantly generated controversy and criticism in the technology community. Some industry observers think that Windows 7 will crush the OS. Other observers think some buyers will snap it up because it’ll be fast and easy to use, running solely on applications residing on the Web.
If Windows does crush the OS, then enterprise IT and data center managers won’t need to worry about it. If consumers adopt it and then bring it to work with them, however, it’ll be a very different story. If that does happen, enterprise IT may never be the same.
Operating System & Applications Mash-Up
If you want to know what Google’s new operating system will be like to use, “get the Chrome browser and study it,” says Daniel Golding, vice president and research director for Tier1 Research, part of The 451 Group. “It’s going to be a version of Linux on the desktop with the Google Chrome browser on top.”
The OS is targeted at “users who do most of their stuff on the Web,” says Michael Silver, research vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “Any type of Web application should run on it.”
IDC analyst Al Gillen worries whether the Linux kernel underlying the OS will be standard or heavily customized. “Google can tweak or improve Linux to make it a better client operating system, then re-release it,” Gillen wrote in a brief titled “Can Google Go Where No Other Linux Distro Has Gone on the Desktop?” The problem, of course, is that if Google tweaks Linux too much, “does the [Linux] community endorse Google’s approach or does the community unite to encourage Google not to fork the base OS?” Gillen writes. “Two Linux kernels are not better than one.”
The OS does have the potential for being “a better way to deliver modern [rich-media] applications based on the Web in the cloud,” says Tim Hickernell, lead analyst for Info-Tech Research Group. “It will give you everything you need without having to buy someone else’s OS. Google is trying to merge the OS and the application layers into one layer and deliver it through the cloud. You’ll do everything through the browser.”
In Spite Of IT
In Google’s release announcing the upcoming OS, the company spoke only of consumers as its target market for the OS, but that doesn’t mean enterprises can ignore it. “‘Consumerization’ of enterprise IT is a growing trend,” says Andi Mann, vice president of research at Enterprise Management Associates. “You don’t have to deploy [the Google OS] in the data center and you don’t have to standardize on it, but you can’t prevent end users from adopting it. Like Web-based storage and the iPhone, we’re seeing an increasing need to put these devices in the enterprise.”
For the average enterprise, Mann says this will be the eighth or ninth OS with which IT will have to wrestle, along with a couple of different versions of Windows, several mobile systems, Linux, Unix, IBM mainframes, and possibly even Apple OS. And then there are the browsers.
“It’s not just Chrome, it’s all these browsers, because users are increasingly using [them] to run applications,” Golding says. “Data center and IT managers shouldn’t try to standardize. They must support the equipment and browsers end users decide to use, whether it’s iPhone, Explorer, Chrome Netbook, or Firefox. The day when IT managers could standardize for their own convenience is over.”
To cope with the plethora of browsers, Golding recommends that IT managers keep track of the browsers their users are using and overall utilization statistics in the larger world. He also recommends keeping up with the Google OS releases.
Mann, however, says enterprises should be wary of relying on Google for sufficient information about the OS. “Chrome OS will probably go into beta for two years,” he says.
Applications In The Cloud
If enough end users delight in the fast, lightweight Google OS and its seamless meld with Web applications and demand to employ it at work, enterprise IT and data center managers can expect many long hours accommodating them.
“Organizations that want to use this have a lot of work to do,” Silver says. “The main issue is the applications. The whole idea is that the OS moves the applications from operating on desktop computers to the Web. So the applications will have to move to servers, and data center managers will have to manage that.” Data center managers will have to look at the number of applications and the number of users running each application and then figure out how to replace all those applications for each user.
The migration cost will depend on the number of applications. And IT and data center managers will have to get heavily involved in selecting, implementing, and maintaining both the applications and the server-based environment where the applications will reside.
Another issue is existing enterprise applications. “More than half of applications require Windows today,” Silver says. “When you are considering this OS or any other, you must consider the applications users need and how they can run them without Windows.” Whether existing applications can be adapted to the Web-only environment or whether they’ll all have to be replaced, Silver says it will be “a ton of work.”
Mann agrees. “It will be a nightmare for IT managers,” he says. “IT will waste time connecting [Google OS-equipped devices] to the network. It will waste time trying to fix applications that they don’t have the tools or skills to do. They will face cost issues because users will want the equipment, and they will face security issues. They will face development issues in re-developing internal applications and customer-facing applications to run on this OS. My advice to enterprise clients is to stay away.”
Because users will likely make that impossible, Hickernell advises enterprise IT groups to experiment with Google’s new OS, just as they would with any other OS. “Stick with your [existing] OS, but start experimenting with delivering modern applications through other methods, such as Adobe AIR and Microsoft’s Silverlight,” he says. “You’ll need your legacy applications and OS for some time. If you want to go forward with Web 2.0 technology, take small steps, not one big leap.”
Key points
* Google’s new Chrome operating system is intended to merge the browser and applications into one seamless experience.
* Although IT and data center managers may object, end users may force the adoption of the OS into the enterprise.
* To prepare for such adoption, IT and data center managers should keep up with Google releases on the OS and start experimenting now with Web-based application delivery.
source: processor.com