In fact google’s idea is to sell the idea and not the OS. They just want people to move away from FatOS concept and move to the “Network(Web) is the Computer” philosophy. basically they want people to buy glorified kindle/digital-photo-frames instead of working on a .NET enabled thick client workstation.

In the end, if you think that netbooks are what laptops should’ve been you’ve not understood the concept of netbooks, which is to be a lightweight client for web services, plus having resources to play video and listen to music for a while. And in that segment battery life and low weight will always be better than huge performance boosts.

Same goes to the poster above, who thought that he’ll be playing WoW on his netbook in a few years.

Then again, if the linux kernel gains widespread support through Android, Moblin, Chrome OS and Ubuntu then we might see Games ported for linux and openGL more often, which would also give those guys some comfort that ‘want to play games’.

I am really hoping that the time of keeping your inventions to yourself in order to make money is over. Wikipedia, Android, Ubuntu and Creative Commons rule :)

Why is this relevant to netbooks? Because in both cases, a tough economy makes Linux, as the low-cost option, infinitely more attractive. What Google brings is a shell that completely hides and simplifies traditional Linux, keeping only the Linux kernel – not something that Linux users would recognise, but exactly what Linux needs to get hardware support, which is a key issue on the netbook, laptops and desktops.

As for Firefox, maybe you can explain why in some countries Firefox is the majority browser, and globally is at over 20%. People aren’t as stupid as you claim they are – they do find alternatives, which is why some of them use Firefox, Linux and Macs.

If Google provides a simpler, easier user experience, without the problems of antivirus, antispyware, botnets, rootkits, software updates, etc (or at least hiding the updates away), they will get some real market share. Even more so if they become the biggest platform in town because you can run the same web apps (with native code and local storage) on any platform, not just Chrome OS…

I personally love the idea of a netbook with 2-4 times the battery life of an Atom, a much lower price point,and generates almost no heat. With a light enough OS, and no wacky ideas of what the netbook should be capable of, the unit would be perfect for people looking to do browsing, email, and document editing.

What would really excite me is running something like the Google OS on a tablet. I love my Netbook, but all I want it for is web surfing, and I suspect that a lot of other people are the same.

Side note: even if people choose Windows on their Netbook today, many are choosing to run Firefox and Chrome instead of IE. Thats a win anyway as it is a small step from Firefox on Windows, to Firefox on Ubuntu :).

A web-os is good for a phone. After all, a phone’s main function is to make and receive calls, but if it has apps which connect to the web it’s great to know that all of that comes with. This is why I own a Pre.

On the other hand, as cheap as netbooks are – they are getting more expensive. Very few new netbook are being released for under $349. Remember when they first came out and the OLPC had everyone wishing they were $100. Not anymore, unless you’re willing to spend $1,000+ on a wireless broadband service for 2 years.

When people walk into a store, they’re going to say …. “what is this?” when they see a linux/unix/android/whatever their name is that isn’t Windows. Then people say “look at Apple, look at Firefox.” With the money ceasing to flow in the economy, I believe there is information about people buying less Macs. At this point, Apple doesn’t care much because they can make more from selling iPods/iPhones and apps to keep people busy. As far as browsers, people use whatever you give them. If you give them IE, they use IE. You tell them IE will crash so use Firefox, they’ll use Firefox. Once again, people are lazy so they won’t find out if FF is better, they love that it’s free, and as long as FF holds up or perform like IE did, they’ll never go back. This is the same problem Bing is seeing with Google. Even though some people love Bing, they’re too lazy to change.

Now, with OSes – my mom isn’t going to buy this kind of stuff. Maybe you can convince college students or some other niche to buy into this stuff but the bulk of people who buy and use computers likes having Windows. My mom just got a blackberry b/c it was free. My sister got one from Verizon so my mom did too. She doesn’t like paying extra for the service but once again we see being lazy, cheap and stupid doesn’t help you.

These companies should find out how to rule televisions, PNDs, and cell phones. If Google tears into Windows Mobile that’ll be better since we may not be using tradition computers in 5-10 years. Microsoft has to change very little to keep people coming back. I can live in my bubble, but I don’t see installed OSes being taken over by Web OSes on computers. All you need is for RackSpace to unplug and then what? No web connection..no OS? Is that the trade-off. Cloud computing for enterprises is cool, but there is local redundancy too in many places, even if it’s information stored on someone’s computer to be able to access it later.

Dell tried Unbuntu on some computers instead of Windows. No wonder they aren’t part of the “Google OS” program. They’ve already learned their lesson.