Stephen Withers
Thursday, 09 July 2009 12:45
Opinion and Analysis
Page 3 of 4
Where's the evidence that Chrome OS will reduce those other factors? Security? Sure, a simpler OS presents a smaller surface to attack.
Data protection? If that's your concern, there's nothing stopping you from centralising storage.
Application maintenance? It's still got to be done, though the deployment of updates is easier with thin clients - and again, there are ways of achieving a similar end with existing systems.
"For Devnet, we see this as a great opportunity, because businesses can stop spending their money on expensive desktop operating systems and applications and dramatically decrease the IT costs related to help desks, security, patch and version maintenance."
If you want to save money on expensive operating systems and applications, you can already go down the open source route. If you don't like open source, you'll steer clear of Chrome OS as it is to be based on Linux.
Help desks? The less contact users have with the operating system, the less likely they are to run into problems. But again, there's already technology available to deliver a completely 'clean' OS every time someone logs on.
Patch management? It'll still be necessary. Looking at Novell's list of security announcement for SUSE, there's at least one Linux kernel issue fixed each month. Chrome OS is going to use the Linux kernel, so why won't it need regular patching too?
So what might be skewing Deveson's opinion? And are there any potential antitrust issues around Google Chrome OS? Find out on the
final page.
