Google has big plans for its forthcoming Chrome operating system, with the first products expected to hit the marketplace in mid-2011. Though Google clearly hopes to benefit from an anticipated cloud-computing boom next year, some industry observers are skeptical.
Gartner Vice President Nick Jones believes Google’s approach to Chrome OS is based on fallacious thinking. “Google seems to assume that most of us will have a perpetually connected, fast, low-latency, affordable wireless pipe,” Jones wrote in a blog. “This is both wrong and narrow-minded because it makes Chrome a product for western mature markets only.”
Riding the IT Wave
IDC forecasts worldwide IT spending of $1.6 trillion in 2011 — up 5.7 percent over 2010. That means transformative technologies such as cloud computing are expected to make the critical transition from early adopter status to early mainstream adoption, noted IDC Senior Vice President Frank Gens.
“As a result, we’ll see the IT industry revolving more and more around the build-out and adoption of this next dominant platform, characterized by mobility, cloud-based application and service delivery, and value-generating overlays of social business and pervasive analytics,” Gens said.
To successfully ride the next IT spending wave, Google has already partnered with Citrix Systems to launch next year a new platform that will let enterprise workers with Chrome OS machines to run corporate apps remotely within the secure environment of the enterprise data center. The goal is to free enterprises from security concerns about attempts to compromise sensitive corporate apps and data.
To make Chrome OS a practical work environment for users, however, Google will have to overcome several obstacles. For example, Chrome OS developers plan to leapfrog potential printer-driver problems by making it possible for users to print directly from the cloud, which will require a whole new generation of printers featuring unique Internet delivery addresses.
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