Not sure why a piece that praises Google as “experimental and entrepreneurial” would be considered “blatantly anti-Google,” but I think as the buzz surrounding Chrome OS increases it’s instructive to remember that the company is fallible.

@ zelric — You’re absolutely right to mention the magnitude of the projects on the list, and it’s true that some of them were the “20 percent projects” Google encourages. But Dodgeball and Jaiku were straight-up acquisitions, and the company’s radio- and print-ad businesses were not just hobbies. And it certainly seems the company hasn’t failed to invest in Google Health.

Chrome OS does not seem to be in the same ball-park as knol or answers or lively etc. This is an OS for netbooks, probably worth comparing with android (or similar OS offerings – from symbian, microsoft, nokia/intel etc). Even then, we may not get the right picture.

Chrome OS has a lot going for it. Show me some one who’d not want a laptop/netbook that boots in under 10 secs, or can help the batteries stay alive for a day… However, the fundamental message that the Chrome OS is screaming out loud is : “The days when laptops/computers were seen as IT products is gone. Here comes a netbook that is a consumer product”. Nerds, may back out and stay with their heavy-duty/professional stuff. The netbook is a Beetle, not a Benz. And Chrome OS powers it, in the best way known today.

The beetle didn’t render other cars obsolete. Fast food will never make fine-dining obsolete. On a similar vein, the netbook with Chrome OS will gain acceptance, but professional PCs and laptops will continue.

On the other hand i can already think of many situations where google OS would be useful, even outside netbooks, like internet kiosks, hotel pc’s, car computers etc. It may not prove the killer OS, but it does cover a need here.

Wi-Max is not happening in large scales, in developing country the situation is more dire.

And there is also datacap and censoring going on, when YouTube and Facebook and Twitter are still blocked from China, how can Chrome OS survive? How?

The goverment or google can single handedly deny you basic functionalities of your cheap computing terminal, really is it what we want, is it the future of the people of the developing countries?

Yeah I know, big brothers are already doing it. It’s just Chrome OS make it TOO EASY.

Perhaps, this will happen, as the global economy begins to pick up more steam.

It’s not that much that they throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks. Question is, if they learn from it as an Organization or not. Or how is individual learning incorporated into the larger organization, specially with “random” failure and success.

At least with Android and Chrome OS there is a relation or guiding line possible which makes it much easier to learn as an organization then random stuff. My guess is that they will merge those 2 in 1-3 years.

As more people are working on a product as more linear the solution becomes, and as more complicated.
Which seems to shine through already in their WAVE and GO APIs, but that also depends on which problem or goal is the assumed underlying guide line. Google seems to think we’ll just wait what happens, which leads to the above statement.

I don’t expect any break through products from them, more along the lines of Microsoft’s development process. Which is very successful at monetizing, and some people even like the products. Problem is. Is it the same environment as the Microsoft time frame?
Bill Joy used to say “Not all smart People work at Sun”, which was pretty much localized at that point in time in the Computer industries. Bill Gates tried to fix it by hiring most of all of the perceived smart kids they could find. Google copies that.
Only thing is, today in a World wide market isn’t it save to assume that “Most of the smart People will not work for you”. So I think that Eric Schmidt should act a little different then the early Bill Gates.

Just wondering.

I should remind you that Google employees are allowed to spend like 20% of their work time on separate projects. There is the remaining 80% which is very focused, believe me.

Android was very shaky in its early days, with changes to “frozen” APIs making life difficult for developers, and there’s a real prospect today that handset makers will “differentiate” the OS enough to create a mess. I’d love to see Android provide a more open alternative to iPhone, but Google has no real track record creating platforms and CEO Eric Schmidt has some blots on his record as the guy in charge of Java at Sun. The ironies of Schmidt running a company that’s now pushing Chrome and Android are extremely rich.

I would add another product as a half-failure and a telling one: Picasa. Google acquired Picasa a few years ago and has been updating it, and it seems to have a healthy user base, but they have utterly failed to fix several severe flaws in an otherwise nice photo organizer/editor. It’s as if it’s a project being done by one guy in a basement in his spare time. A lot of stuff Google produces has an unfinished quality.

If you respect NASA, do you know hit ratio of NASA? It is way less than 50% on all mission embankment…

BTW, I love their Notebook… it is most awesome product … my life is half dead without it…..

Dej.