Is Google Chrome a SaaS operating system?

Tag : chrome

For a company traditionally perceived as consumer facing,Google’s new web browser looks set to one day turn heads inthe corporate world with its heavy SaaS (software-as-a-service)focus on JavaScript applications.
While it resembles a browser and is instantly familiar to anyInternet Explorer or Firefox user, under the hood is a V8JavaScript engine designed to run Google and others’ servicesand applications as if they were desktop programs.
This functionality means Chrome more closely resembles the taskmanager of an operating system. Each browser tab functions as aseparate process, allowing it to fail without taking the rest ofthe program with it. While every process costs more in terms ofsystem resources, it results in less memory bloat (and perceivedslowdown) over time.
Other features are more browser-centric. A list of last-visitedpages appears on every new tab (handy for resuscitation purposes)along with bookmarks and an RSS-style feed of frequently visitedwebsites. The address bar is multifunctional, accepting webaddresses along with Google search queries and map directions.Searches can be eerily contextual; for example, after locating aspecific hotel on Google maps, a subsequent search for a reviewoffers results assuming you are referring to the sameestablishment.
Google admits that many of Chrome’s functions have beenborrowed from elsewhere – such as the ‘Incognito’function, which saves no data locally
and masks browsing, download and cookies. Basic web surfingfunctionality remains little different from any other browseroffering.
But it’s the concept of a machine running a SaaS operatingsystem, rather than a proprietary OS and browser platform,that’s attracting attention. Hints of Chrome’spotential are immediately evident in the way it does away with atraditional Windows program interface, omitting a title bar andconventional file menus and taking up the entire screen like an OSshell.
An early Gartner report into the beta edition of Chrome highlightsthe program’s “sophisticated system management andprocess monitoring features that cross into operating systemterritory”. The analyst firm speculates that Google is hopingChrome will “enable the next generation of browserapplications, which can work offline and blur the desktop/webboundary”.
Browser war II
Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, acknowledged in an interview with the Financial Times that the search giant had never intended to create a browser, but, observing therise of web-centric applications, had done so as a defensivemeasure to prevent Microsoft from sidelining the company withInternet Explorer.
“Microsoft has a history of favouring its own applicationsand I can give you 500,000 pages of court testimony, document webblogs and so forth and so on about that,” he told the FT,explaining that the open source-based Chrome would directlychallenge Microsoft as a platform for “powerful industrialapps”.
Gartner predicts that Chrome’s release heralds a long-term“strategic conflict between Google and Microsoft, assuming itreduces Internet Explorer’s market share and that some usageof MS Office and Exchange shifts over to Google-branded,cloud-based alternatives”.
Winning over the enterprise will be the key to Chrome’ssuccess, the analyst firm predicts: “Over the long term,Google Chrome’s appeal must extend beyond early adopters tomainstream enterprise users – a chasm that [Google-supported]Firefox has yet to cross.”
Few analyst firms, including Gartner, are recommending thatenterprises take Chrome very seriously as an alternative to Firefoxor IE at this point – even Google insists that Chrome is inbeta. “It’s really premature from an enterpriseperspective to start planning for this,” says Forresteranalyst Sheri McLeish, adding that in the short-term IT managersshould be aware of Chrome’s potential to infiltrate theorganisation in the hands of curious users, similar to instantmessaging applications.
One good reason for business to wait is security. VeriSign hasissued a statement praising Chrome’s support of EV-SSLsecurity certificates from beta, “making it the only browserexcept IE 8 to do so”. But security researchers arecontinuing to pick holes in the software, and it may be some timebefore it reaches the same level of security and stability asFirefox.
Another concern is privacy – Google has admitted that around 2% of the keystroke data collected by theaddress bar’s auto-suggest feature will be stored along withthe IP address of the computer or device. This is disabled by anoption or by using an ‘Incognito’ tab, but it stillraises questions as to what Google plans to do with theinformation.
Chrome is most telling in that it adds substance to the speculationsurrounding Google’s plans for a SaaS future in both theenterprise and consumer arena – as opposed toMicrosoft’s more measured half-licence, half-cloud‘Software + Services’ approach. Data centres at sea
Certainly, Google is quietly investing in the data centreinfrastructure to support its mass hosting approach. According toErick Schonfeld of TechCrunch, Google has 36 data centres aroundthe globe – including 19 in the US and 2 in Europe . Now it wants to go offshore. Recently, the search giant submitteda patent for floating data centres, cooled by seawater and poweredby a combination of solar panels, wind turbines and Pelamis P-750wave energy converters designed in Scotland ’s Orkney Islands .
“It can be expensive to build and locate data centres, and itis not always easy to find access to necessary (and inexpensive)electrical power, high-bandwidth data connections, and coolingwater for such data centers,” observes Google’s patentapplication.
A water-based data centre could even enhance Internet trafficmanagement, Google notes, as it “may be moved closer tousers, with relevant content sent from a central facility out toregional data centres only once, and further transmissionsoccurring over shorter regional links. As a result, every requestfrom a user need not result in a transmission cross-country andthrough the Internet backbone – network activity may be moreevenly balanced and confined to local areas."
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