In a direct challenge to Microsoft, Google announced late Tuesday that it is developing an operating system for PCs that is tied to its Chrome Web browser.The idea, as I understand it, is that Google expects people to shift more and more to netbooks and to run their applications (and store their files) on the Internet. The netbooks become, in essence, "dumb terminals" which have to access the Internet in order to perform the desired functions.
Which is just the way that office computing was done 30 years ago when companies had huge UNIX-based VAX servers from Digital Equipment Corp. You logged on at a terminal that was a keyboard and a CRT.
I, for one, am not comfortable with the idea of my stuff residing on a server that is under someone else's control. At least in the old days of the VAX or IBM mainframes, there was someone that I could to talk to (or threaten) if something went wrong. Here, if I were to use the "cloud computing" idea and my data got munged, who has the backup? Who do I talk to?
Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Microsoft. But this idea of having my stuff dispersed to Babbage knows where just doesn't wash for me.
All of my blog posts are backed up in MS Word and reside on my hard drive, where I can maintain the illusion that I have some control over them. I have about the same level of trust for the Internet as I have for a politician.
ReplyDeleteNot mentioned so far is the thought that this is a left-handed way to start charging for the use of the internet - so much for the use of each program accessed and so much for storage of x amount of data, etc. . .
ReplyDeleteHeck, I go even farther than Phil, I trust computers about as much as I trust politicians.
I keep my own systems and servers for that. Yes it's a PITA and all but hey
ReplyDeleteITs MY DATA.
As someone with a net book Eeepc 701 with a seemingly meager 4gb of storage (excluding SD slot or thumb drives) I fail to understand why people need a portable machine that needs 1TB drive!
To add to the comment internet stat storage and politicians how many storage companies started and disappeared or got slow or changed their storage structure cost wise?
Their history is neither long or based on anything real. At the other end of the spectrum one never shou; rely on a site as they can and do disappear or
worse become inaccessible when most critical.
However given time any OS can be better
than mickyspooge (M$) it only took linux
less than 10 years to go from obscure geeky to pretty sharp mainline enough to scare M$ into keeping XP around at it's the only crap they have that fits on a netbook (with a 160GB drive!).
Eck!
I do 3D animation for a living. I've recently gotten my first 24fps job, which means that instead of 1920x1080 - uncompressed, with an alpha channel - I'll be dealing with 4096 wide by [reference] height. (Usually 3072). Uncompressed. With alpha channel.
ReplyDeleteDumb Terminals do not even slightly do it for me. Offsite storage, even less so.
If you'll excuse me, I'll just go refresh the offline 4TB array...