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I think the problem here is the "one size fits all" assumption of the Google-centric future the article describes. The browser update policy is a great example. Probably the world would be a better place on average if mom and pop auto-updated, but the policy has serious downsides. For one, it's a pain for me as a geek who likes to know what is running on his machine (and who, frankly, doesn't trust Google as far as he could throw it). It's also a pain for me as a web developer, because of the various breaking changes Google is demonstrably willing to make in its browser, as discussed in several recent HN threads. There are other problems with "one size fits all" that I think undermine the entire premise of the article, though. If Chrome is to be the new OS, then does that mean every application front-end in the world has to be written in JavaScript? On the evidence to date, this is not going to be a success... Similarly, "[Google App Engine] just runs the code you give it, and you don’t much care how" sounds like a great argument, until you realise that you have to write your code using the tiny fraction of the available programming tools that happen to be supported by GAE. Given that in this business, the two most common scenarios are keeping geek opinion on your side or your company failing rather horribly, I think we can safely assume that nothing Google offers today is even close to comprehensive enough to displace native apps and make cloud/browser software the norm. Oh, and if the article author thinks that broadband-speed wireless is going to become as ubiquitous as electricity within a few years, I think he probably needs to go back to physics school. :-) |