Richard McManus of ZDNet says people are and Marc Orchant also of ZDNet says maybe not. I think it’s not just a question of whether people are ready, it’s a question of "is the Internet ready and capable?" I’m not so sure. You’d think that a web-based OS is the ultimate mobile productivity solution, and at some point, it may well be.
At this point, I’m personally much more comfortable using certain services on the web from within the browser in my computer OS. From a storage and security standpoint, my UMPC is more proven and gives me a warm-fuzzy. Unless I have a complete hard drive failure, my data is readily accessible as long as I can supply power to my device. If a web service (let alone a full web OS) has a hiccup, I’m dead in the water. From DOS attacks to power outages at data centers to something as simple as (and annoying as) browser rendering incompatibilities, there’s a wide array of issues that bring me from 60 to zero in one fell swoop.
The web OS isn’t a bad idea at all for a completely mobile solution, but I’m not comfortable with the underlying infrastructure to place all my bets on it just yet. How about you?
-kct
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