As you know I am mindful of cloud computing and agree with your argument about broadband connectivity. In my view this extends to decision makers assessing the risk to their business and simply saying ‘No’ to cloud computing. Unless we could guarantee, as a society, that we would have 99.9% connectivity and lightning speeds (I refuse to settle for adequate anymore) then I for one could not recommend or accept the risk.

It strikes me that while the concept may be well publicised (being Google afterall) it sits as a plaything for the very technically minded who love opensource applications and operating systems. I cannot see the point of Google OS for regular consumers or businesses . . . . . only developers.

However, you have touched on what could be a key winner in my view. Indeed Windows software has migrated across various platforms (which made sense) and OSX was replicated onto the iPhone (which made even more sense). But it appears that Google are trying to crack the same nut but in a different way by developing the mobile platfor first (Android) and then the larger OS later. But it is this cross platform development that I believe could make Google OS a big success.

My theory goes something like this.

EA have long been highlighting the vast cost of developing a single game across several console platforms and have even said that it makes a lot of projects look commercially unviable. A cost saving has to come from somewhere so normally is taken from the gameplay experience. We often see the same gaming engine already developed as a foundation for each platform with the game content merely ‘painted’ across the top. However the really good games have some more significant development in the programming. That is why I believe we now see a market of console exclusive games . . . . . not because of some great deal with the studio but more a case of economics then dressed with some clever licensing and PR hype. For example Uncharted on the PS3 and Forza on the Xbox. Both outstanding games. Portable? Yes! Financially viable? Probably not.

There are ofcourse some exceptions to this (GTA, Assassins Creed, Guitar Hero etc) but even then these titles tend to sit at the premium end of the market.

Back to Google OS and the opportunity at hand. What would be a really clever approach for Google would be to develop it not as a ‘Cloud’ base OS, but perhaps a multi platform OS. A tool that would make developing applications relatively simple and easier to migrate between the competing OS. Now I am aware that a large element of this would probably have to come from some pretty resource hungry emulation code running deep within, but the simple concept of being able to use your current PC to run Mac and MS applications through the same environment would be revolutionary.

I can visualise this utopian approach of developers being able to see the code they enter for Google OS trickling through (Matrix style) to OSX, Linux or MS code equivalents on alternative windows or screens within the same environment.

Then ofcourse would come the huge amount of legal wrangling and arguments over things such as “hey, that’s Apple trademarked code” and “this clearly is a robbing our MS brand” which brings us full circle back to why there is not a single platform at the moment . . . . competition! As long as we live in free markets the large corporations will continue to stifle and throttle each other until cooperation is the only way they can survive.

In conclusion, I have to agree that Google OS has a huge question mark over its existence. The Google developers are clearly driving the business strategy at the moment because we can all see that this does not look like a successful endeavour. The question is if Google wanted to change their strategy, and were to read these comments and agree would they be big enough and brave enough to take the challenge on.

Personally I doubt it.