Google Targets Chrome OS At Enterprise - Says 2011 Will Be The Year Of "Nothing But The Web" For Corporations

With its new Chrome OS operating system, Google has fallen into its characteristic trap of being long on vision but short on clear tactics. It is clear that the browser-as-OS fits perfectly into the firm's long-held vision of turning the 'fat client' PC into a pared-down appliance with all its data and services in the cloud. But in terms of where the first 'Chromebooks' will actually be targeted, Google has been a web of mixed messages. At various times, the promised devices have been presented as netbooks on steroids, an even more web-friendly iteration of the tablet, or tools for emerging economies. The latest direction is to go right after the heartland of the Microsoft PC, the enterprise.

Focal Points:

• Last week, Google announced a slew of features for the Chrome browser and OS, designed to appeal to hard-pressed corporate IT administrators. Amid reports that the Apple iPad and other tablets are, even at this early stage, attracting attention as a PC alternative, Google will be keen to talk up its own credentials for easing the IT manager's burden.
• All of these can be used simply with the Chrome browser on a PC or Mac, but they are also usable with the full Chrome OS environment, and the timing of the launch - just after the first prototype Chrome OS notebooks - is unlikely to be coincidental.
• The GigaOM blog points out the connections, quoting a post by Dave Girouard, president of Google Enterprise, about the vision of a cloud-based enterprise. He wrote: "While many IT vendors have now adopted (or co-opted) the term 'cloud computing' to describe a wide variety of technologies, most don't deliver on the true promise of the cloud. Hosting single-tenant server products in a data center is not cloud computing. Nor is requiring customers to install thick client software. In a 100% web world, business applications are delivered over the internet and accessed in a web browser. Devices like notebooks, tablets, and smartphones are portals to the data that help people be productive from anywhere, at any time."

He concluded with a claim that could be the marketing slogan for the Chromebook, and other web-based platforms like MeeGo and HP's own Palm webOS. "If 2010 was the year of the cloud, 2011 looks to be the year of nothing but the web."