Google's India strategy for the Chrome OS: One idea
Sidin Vadukut -
Sunday, July 12, 2009 12:40 PM
Ever since Google announce the Chrome OS via blogpost a few days ago the web has been agog with speculation, projection and assumption about how Chrome OS could change the OS game. Some say that the OS will be a serious contender to Microsoft's WIndows hegemony while others think that the Chrome OS, like the Chrome browser, will be all noise and no adoption. (The browser, if you're wondering, launched to tremendous fanfare including a comic book expressly made for the launch, only to now languish in 4th place when it comes to browser popularity.)
The Chrome browser was a good idea with plenty of smart thinking in its design and execution but there is much more to the popularity of a piece of software than merely the essential efficiency and utility. Say what you want about Internet Explorer, but way too many people in the world, around 70%, still click on the IE logo when they want to access the internet. And whether you like it or not, if you're going to do any amount of e-commerce on the web, you are probably better of using IE for a more stable experience.
Indeed just this weekend I finally brought home a brand new iMac. It will be the first serious attempt I am making at using a non-Windows computer. (Yes like everyone else in engineering college I tried to learn Unix and X-Windows too. And read that Tennenbaum textbook on Networking several times. But when campus placement season got over, and most of us had cleared our software company written tests, we all reverted to good old Windows 98.) Now the iMac is a beautiful machine. And I was up till 6 in the morning fiddling around with the various applications and making the application windows zoom in and zoom out and all that.
But there was a learning curve involved. I just had to learn a lot of new things again. For instance I was mildly perturbed at not being able to Window+D to go the desktop as usual. And I am still googling away Mac user forums to figure out how to dothings.
So given that transitions from one OS, however sucky, to another, however cool, is so tricky, how much Google market Chrome? And how must they do this in the Indian context?
I have a theory. What Google is saying is this: Chrome OS will be an operating system based off the internet. For all practical purposes it will be driven through a browser like environment where users will be able to online and offline as they wish to use an array of applications including email, word processing and so on. And with something like Google Gears they will have some ability to keep working even when the web is offline. So the Chrome OS is essentially designed to work with low-spec machines on which users will get to do the basic things. Things they are already doing on a netbook. So why not, I ask Google, package Chrome OS with a low-spec netbook and a 3G mobile internet card/USB stick with prepaid utilization? By mid-2010, when Chrome is supposed to see light of day, India should have the 3G setup in place.
I think a single all-in-one, OS+laptop+connectivity solution would position Google very well in the Indian market. The device would work out of the box without any installation and connectivity hassles and 3G mobile sticks should give great speeds. It would make a formidable marketing proposition that could blow all the other makers out of the market. And even if this laptop had ridiculously low onboard memory, and there is no reason to assume this, Google Chrome OS should be a light slim operating system that doesn't hog it.
I find this proposition very tempting indeed. What do you think?