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High-priced hardware will kill Google Chrome

By on March 17, 2010 12:03 pm

So says an analyst from International Data Corp (IDC) regarding Google’s plans to bundle Chrome OS into mini-notebooks. But which hardware will be considered ‘high-priced’ in these machines, and how will it affect Google’s own operating system?

Read on to find out more.

If you have been holding off getting a Windows-powered netbook or mobile computing device in favour of one that runs Google’s upcoming Chrome OS because of the dreaded “Microsoft tax”, you might want to rethink your decision, because these Chrome-powered devices might end up costing more than the netbooks running Microsoft Windows.

According to Bob O’Donnell, vice president of client s and displays at International Data Corp (IDG), Chrome’s strict hardware requirements: a relatively high-performing graphics processor, coupled with various other hardware like accelerometers, sensors and solid state drives or SSDs, could significantly push the cost of manufacturing a Chrome-powered device beyond that of existing Windows netbooks, while still lacking the huge application and driver support which Windows enjoy.

He also cast doubt of Chrome OS’s feasibility of being designed purely for online usage with all applications running within the browser, stating that offline usage accounts for about 40% of a user’s computer time, saying that “it’s a serious challenge for Chrome”, and that people may not take kindly to a huge change in their computing habits.

In addition, O’Donnel “was also skeptical of ARM’s chances” in the mobile computing segment, believing that as far as multipurpose systems are concerned, the x86 architecture is still the dominant player in the market, especially when both Windows and OS X, the 2 most popular desktop OSes in the world, have not been [ported over to the ARM architecture.

“Clamshell systems need Windows or Mac OS because if a system looks like a notebook people want it to act like one,” he said.

That being said, it would probably still do Microsoft some good to start planning its own answer against Google, because if Chrome OS does take off well, the Redmond giant may be in for a lot of hurt in the mobile computing space, especially where netbooks are concerned.

Source: EETimes

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