Google announce an Open Source web based operating system for next year. What are the implications for schools? Few thoughts to kick off.
- Nothing to install
- Low cost netbook and smartphone terminals
- No viruses or spyware - nothing user-installed on the terminal
- No need for local servers or storage
- Reduce management all round
Overall a massive reduction in costs for school ICT to the extent where all written work is done through a terminal. End of exercise books?
Maybe we need a real e-strategy to make the transition off dated and expensive desk-bound PCs :-)
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With attendant nasty implications for Firefox, currently receiving over 90% of its funding from Google. Why would Google continue to finance Firefox when it has its own browser and browser/OS?
Only available with new kit. It will not be available for install, only with a purchase.
Only runs web apps. There will be no hard-drive install and no scope for locally installed software so there is an effective lock in on what can be deployed,
Google has stated that Firefox could be used as an alternative basis for the Chrome OS. (and IE for that matter) Google's motivation is to move everyone to the web to further their search and associated advertising business. I don't think it is primarily to set up a monopoly on Chrome (After all they have made it Open Source). If Firefox is ultimately dependent on any single commercial entity it's a dangerous position to be in. (As with OOo and Oracle)
I don't see how there is lock-in to what can be developed. Simply develop a web app in Javascript - http://www.euro-face.cz/javascript/pexeso/pexeso.htm
Make a link to that app from your applications menu.
If you mean hacking the OS itself, it's open source so you can make your own version either dependent or independent of any hardware. I would expect Canonical, Mozilla and several other providers to do something like that. Google just provides confidence, rather like IBM did with the PC.
With Google the biggest concern monopoly wise is to have your data stored eg all your past e-mails, so it is difficult to switch it to another provider. Life isn't perfect. OTOH I can easily maintain a legacy data repository with Google and switch to another supplier for all new transactions which is rather better than the position schools now find themselves in with Windows. Personally, I don't think Google's strategy is lock-in to applications, that is so 1980s :-). They released Android for everyone to use. We have to stop thinking about business models based on license lock-in because the successful companies of the future already worked out that that has a very limited future in global markets.
Another concern:
Google sometimes cuts people off with no explanation. One of our teachers recently set up an account for our department, used the account to email teachers and did a survey (on Google) - collected results from about 100 teachers and then discovered Google had closed the account. No explanation, no reply to emails to their support system. So be careful, I am a great fan of Google facilities, but they sometimes do inexplicable thing and will not explain the inexplicable.
I think any large bureaucracy is going to have "issues". Really I wasn't advocating Google, more the implications of a shift from the desktop to the web as the platform. On balance I can see a lot more advantages than disadvantages to that and it probably takes a company the size of Google to give the confidence to make it happen.
Just a quick comment from a Mozilla employee who lurks on this list...
To say Google "finances" Firefox feels a little misleading. Google has a non-exclusive deal to be a search provider in Firefox. Google is also Mozilla's biggest source of revenue, but this is a business relationship, not one of Google simply "funding" the project. Firefox now has 25% of the global browser market (a good reason for maintaining a business relationship, I would have thought) and sufficient reserves that it could run for several years with no revenue if no appropriate partner could be found.
Lastly: it is the mission of the Mozilla project to enhance the public benefit aspects of the Web. More choice in the browser market is part of that vision - not so nasty.
Patrick
Thanks Patrick, I think that also shows that Google is not likely to be motivated to kill Firefox. More likely they would want to ensure all browsers carry their search facilities and there is sufficient competition in the market to make carrying their search compelling for all players. Who are the biggest potential losers from a web based operating system becoming the norm? Not browsers but Desktop OSs so MS primarily but also Apple and Desktop Linux. Ironically, Linux at the desktop could simply become irrelevant but that would mean Windows was irrelevant too.
Interestingly, if you look at the Chrome OS source it is using a fair bit of Ubuntu code, and they recommend using Ubuntu as the Build Environment.
They also make it clear that Chrome OS - currently at least - is aimed squarely at the Netbook market. In addition they discuss that "big apps" (Graphics Packages etc) would not be suitable for the cloud and would be resident on higher powered desktop machines.
I'm really not sure about the overall implications for Schools and other sectors but it is an interesting development, new approach to mobile computing and, more to the point completely Open Source.
Anyone can take the code, modify it and turn it into something that scratches their itch. It could make a great platform as an educational OS to give to kids. Secure, robust and intimately controllable.
I should think that the vast majority of learning applications could be (should be?) web based. Schools need technologies geared to learning, not all the same type of machine all running the same software. So have some specialist machines for 3D graphic animation, specialist music etc and have many netbooks for the general productivity stuff such as e-portfolios, collaborative working etc based on the web.
Video, graphics and 3D animation editing might even benifit froma client/server model - the processor-intensive rendering to be done on the server, with front-end stuff being done on the client. Aviary might be a good example:
http://aviary.com/
I should think there will be a massive flurry of development in this space. There is already AJAX to make web pages more like desktop apps. We use it in the INGOT certification site. Adobe Air plugins allow out of the browser apps. Things that seem to need a local desktop storage now probably won't in the future. You could do a lot with 4 gig of RAM on a client without ever having to save anything locally.
FYI
Canonical (The company behind Ubuntu) have revealed that they have been working for Google under contract on Chrome OS: http://blog.canonical.com/?p=294