The necessity of a Google Linux operating system

David M Williams
Thursday, 09 July 2009 18:44

Opinion and Analysis

For certain classes of computer users, Google is synonymous with “the Web” or even “the Internet.” Google is their home page. It’s their kick off point to the web.

Google is a proper noun and at the same time it is a verb. It’s reached the status that all brands aspire to but only few reach, where the brand is itself used interchangeably with the primary activity it is associated with. Just as administrative personnel around the world “Xerox” documents, so too people “Google” the things they wish to know about.

On my corporate networks I’ve always set people’s web browser home pages to the company intranet. Invariably I’ve needed to add a link to Google somewhere on this page because less-Internet savvy staff have not known how to actually go anywhere else online without Google.

I didn’t appreciate just how entrenched this need for Google was until one day when I typed a web site address in a co-worker’s browser’s address bar. They said, “Oh, you use that top bar, do you?” I had to pause to take in the full extent of everything that question meant.

It was at this point I realised that the Google search bar was, for many a person just like this co-worker, the single means of navigating the web. They didn’t just enter search terms here, it was also where they would enter the addresses of any pages they were referred to.

So, my bet is that a Google operating system that brandishes the Google logo and kicks off a web browser straight into Google’s search engine is going to have a popularity and level of trust across the globe that eclipses any other Linux distribution. On day one of release its name recognition will be through the roof.

Of course, there is a risk that Google will grow bored with Chrome OS and allow it to languish in perpetual beta, if it even makes it that far.

Until this week Google had a reputation for producing beta products and not marking them as finished.

Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta product on April 1st, 2004. It became available to the general public on February 7th, 2007, remaining in beta. Similarly, Google Apps spent three years in beta status.

Pleasantly and surprisingly just this week, July 7th, 2009, Google upgraded both Gmail and Google Apps from beta. Let’s hope we’re still not looking at Chrome OS beta this time in 2012.