Re-thinking the Operating System

google-chrome-logoGoogle modestly announced its plans for the Chrome OS on Tuesday night (7/7/09). This sent a tsunami of news headlines over the world announcing how Google is taking on Microsoft, dropping an atomic bomb and so on. I agree that this is newsworthy as this is part of the battle for the desktop. However, this is not surprising and while this is significant it might for other reasons than the obvious. The reason is simple. The OS as we know it is not that important anymore.

The big trend here is how operating systems are changing. Operating systems as we know them have become like a commodity. If we look at the big three: Windows, Linux and MacOS they are basically the same. The do their job well. Think about memory management, multitasking, caching, IO, and so on. These subjects have been taught at universities for decades. I even taught these in an Operating Systems course some twenty years ago.

What really separates them is the GUI on top – the look and feel. Then image that instead of the GUI desktop you have a simple lightweight windowing system and a web browser. What is underneath, the operating system is not that important (nor interesting) as long as the browser can do all the tasks.

And this is the significant part of the Google announcement. The browser is the desktop of the computer and all the application run either in the browser or as a service on the Internet.

Both of these are significant. The war is not on the OS but on the application standard running in the browser and the cloud. As it says in the Google announcement: “for application developers, the web is the platform”. The applications running in the browser can be HTML 5 JavaScript application or RIA via Ajax, Flash, Silverlight or some other RIA application model.

The second piece is the cloud. It’s the services on the Internet that are just as important as the applications that can be downloaded. As more and more services go to the cloud the battle moves to the hosting part and the on-line applications.

For many desktop computers users just having a browser might not meet their requirements. But for many users (could be the same users with one of their other computer) using a simple netbook is enough. Not surprisingly, this is where Google is going to begin with.

The Google announcement demonstrates that there is a shift in how we look at the role of the operating system. We are seeing a move from the current traditional computer model to a more web-oriented computer. The abstractions are moving again. It remains to be seen if Google can succeed in providing a browser-based operating system with the limitations of a browser. But Google is re-thinking the role of the operating system and it’s very likely that other players in the market are also working on these trends.

Remember CompuServe?

CompuServeMagazineIt’s another example of how existing technology gets disrupted by new technology and fades away. CompuServe on-line dial-up service was the king of the consumer computer networks in the 80s and into the 90s but got replaced by the Internet. For many the service was the first experience into the online world. According to news reports this week, CompuServe Classic was officially suspended July 1, 2009.

CompuServe was one of the earliest consumer networks. With dial-up modem access it offered person-to-person messages, discussion forums, news and more. Since this was an example of utility computing, the business model was based on subscription fee added to the cost of a phone call for dialing in.

CompuServe got disrupted pretty fast by the Internet when the World Wide Web started to spread with the Mosaic browser. Although the dial-up network provided many services we now take for granted on the Internet, for example news, shopping, travel and so on, the proprietary model did not stand a chance. The Internet was, if you take away the dial-up cost, free. More importantly, the Internet was truly global. In fact, the generative nature of the Internet is so powerful. Anybody can add a service to the Internet. Just install a server somewhere and plug it to the Internet. While CompuServe was great, it was only extended by the private company running it. This is another example of how the generative platform tend to win, if freely allowed to.

The Real-time Web

The rise of social networks have brought people together on-line. Groups and communities have created what we call the social web. Information is shared and the power has shifted from corporations to the people.  The consumption economy where corporations rule is being replaced by the engagement economy where the opinions of the masses rule. While the social web is very interesting and somewhat foreseen there is another element of the social web that is more unexpected and has caught us by surprise. This is the real-time web.

Perhaps the best example of real-time is Twitter. Twitter has fascinated the media and gets constant coverage. Than at the same time so many simply don’t see anything interesting with the service. The real reason why Twitter is so interesting is the real-time aspect. Think about Twitter’s 140 characters micro-blogs as a stream of text, one entry after the other. Then image you can analyze this stream and detect keywords. What are people saying? Can we see any trends?

Two recent events provide examples and the media is full of reports on how these stories developed on Twitter: the Iran uprising and the death of Michael Jackson. However, they are very different. The Iranian revolution got nearly exclusively reported on Twitter and Facebook for the first few hours. The big networks did not have coverage. The people in Iran used their computers and mobile phones to keep the world updated with accounts and pictures from the streets of Teheran. Even few days later, Iran is still a trending topic.

twitteriran
Sceenshots from Twitterfall late on the 16th of June 2009

The case of Iran is an example of what makes Twitter or any real-time web site important – people provide information. I would not be surprised that real-time feeds from the people at the locations of the events, pictures or messages, are important intelligence to governments monitoring the situation.

News of the death of pop king Michael Jackson was quick to start a Twitter trend, and soon was all over the media. Here is an interesting video from Twitscoop showing how the trend spread:

One good thing about Twitter is it shows what people are thinking about – now. News travels fast in Twitterworld, but just as thing spread fast, they die fast. BuzzMachine has an interesting input into this discussion. The real time web is not only interesting for what is emerging, it is also an indicator of what people are loosing interest of.

The real-time web is one of the emerging trends we see on the Internet. It gives new meaning to communication and information flow. Gone are days of one-to-many broadcast news where the few rule the opinions, we are entering the world of many-to-many information feeds – in real-time.