I wonder what is EU going to say about Google shipping Chrome browser with its operating system. Google won't be able to claim it is an "integral part" after MS tried that and failed

Nothing, I'd imagine, as Google don't have a monopolistic share of the market.

I think the EU will be glad to see another company trying to compete.

I really can't wait to give this a try now.

What's a Netbook for?

Might I suggest it's for browsing the web, doing email and other Net related type things?

Such tasks are quite limited without a network connection, so having a browser is pretty much the only requirement.

If you want to use a small portable device to do non-net things, then you want a notebook and not a netbook. The clue is in the name, surely? Otherwise, what's the difference between a Net and a Note??!

A netbook, yes, but they are talking about it being used on notebooks and high end desktops as well...


True, but a netbook doesn't become useless if you are travelling and don't happen to have a network connection, or cheap network connection, available.

If your music collection or films are in the cloud, what are you going to do when you are flying somewhere? HTML5 and Gears will only be able to help you so far, when no connection is available.

If I am sitting on a long flight and prepping a document or presentation for when I arrive and I suddenly need to access my old e-mail records, with a current netbook or notebook, I don't have a problem, I just open the appropriate folder. With GMail, even with Gears or HTML5, it probably isn't going to archive my whole e-mail archive locally, let alone a few gigabytes of video and music...


Size and cost. A netbook will happily run Linux or Windows and Office (MS or Open), for example, for listening to music or watching video on the move etc. MIDs are becoming much more versatile and are being used for all sorts of purposes.

Plus, as above, Google are touting it for Notebooks and desktops as well.

I rather suspect, to quote some wag, its "Too little too soon..."

Google have, not unexpectedly,missed the boat again. They are the archetypal one-trick pony (its a pretty good trick, and they do it well) but attempts to diversify out of online advertising seem doomed. Indeed I don't really see it as a diversification, more an adjunct. Every "Chrome", Gmail, Maps etc user is another tranche of user-data; worth money to Google. So its almost inevitable failure to make much headway won't be a disaster for young Sergey...

So why the hype? (clue: its the silly season, and Apple have gone a bit quiet).
The whole "Cloud" hype completely misses the point that the so-called "Cloud" is actually only a couple of patches of slight dampness floating about and completely incapable of raining on anyone's parade, let alone Microsoft's. Should "Chrome" really take off and say 5 million people use it it'll only be viable in strictly limited areas like Korea where there's decent infrastructure to support it, and Google will have to start building some REALLY serous data centres to accommodate all the data (images, Videos, songs etc) let's say about 300-400GB per user?) on their cloud. What happens when you ditch "Chrome" ? Do they do a Mick and start shouting at yer ("Hey you get offa my cloud, don't hang around."... etc).
Who's going to provide tech support for all these neophytes? At present Google doesn't need to support all the propeller-heads using its stuff they (we?) 're all sufficiently nerdy to work it out, but when the likes of 'disconnected of Tonbrige Wells' loses all their data in amongst all that diaphanous wet stuff; there may be trouble ahead....

Anyhow even if they sort-out the various "challenges" hinted at above, the whole basic philosophy is wrong. I want to store MY data MYself. I screw up its my fualt but at least I know who can access it where it is etc. Simples....
I'll mebbee back it up to a data centre (if its cheap enough) but at present my single 1TB HDD does just fine, and I can easily add another for £60. Compare & contrast with online storage charges...

New utterly "scifi" storage mechanisms are just around the corner. Home Servers and inclusive family-wide networking is on its way. "Cloud computing" PAH ! I'll possibly use a netbook with APPLICATIONS running from t'interweb. I might have a working "cache" of data stored there shared between my various devices (I already do to an extent with "Mesh") , but that "Cloud" is one basket all my eggs most certainly won't be in, at least not until its a lot bigger, more robust and so-on.

Also have to think about European Data regulations and if its data regarding a person you have to have special approval ( nightmare to get ) to store it outside the EU.

Were will your data be stored both primary and fail over.

In terms of business use in the short or medium term I cant see it happening. Private use probably yes it will be fine.

Well that's why it makes such good sense. The reason they're making it is because they want to cut out all the unnecessary bloat that isn't needed for a cloud based system.



I haven't seen them saying anywhere that they want to put it on "high end desktops" though. Everything I've read from Google says netbook netbook netbook.

Missed the boat??? They're the ones building it!



I don't agree.

I would agree with you in that all they are good at is online advertising. However, they have a number of ways they are doing it! Of course, they aren't making any money from youtube.com at the moment, and I highly doubt they are making any money out of their "office" like suite.

But it's a numbers game. As you get more people using the services, the more money they will make (obviously).

Creating a kick-ass netbook OS is one way they can do that. As JJ said, people use netbooks for browsing, email and light officey-type-stuff. Google cater for this with their online services, but people aren't using them because their operating systems are better suited to local applications.



Microsoft are one of the leaders!! They're building a huge number of data-centres to support their cloud based services.



I see your point here. However, as said before 99% of the stuff people use netbooks before is not intensive. I don't see video being a problem tbh. Nobody has said the devices won't have local drives too. As we all know, they'll need one. I'd be incredibly shocked if users weren't able to store files on the local drive.



I doubt it. My mum uses GMail for her personal e-mail and Outlook Express for her work e-mail. Guess which one she finds easier to use? Support is out there for Google products anyway.



Yeah, I can certainly see why businesses wouldn't be happy storing data in the cloud. I think this is a genuine concern. As we know, nothing is 100% secure.



I doubt they'll be charging.



That's exactly what Google are punting. There hasn't been any word on storage yet, people are assuming that it will all be cloud-based. That may not be the case. I'm hoping you will have options to save locally, in the cloud, or both.



You are already using cloud-based services then. And again, Google haven't said it will be purely cloud based. A local copy is almost a given.