Discussion on:

While IT pros scoff, Google Chromebooks will likely seduce businesses

I see in security a major problem. If we assume that a hacker is able to successfully hack the cloud. All companies that were to have the information on the public cloud would be compromised. And even the regular people could have their identities stolen or suddenly our credit cards maxed. And for the Network, if you aren't in your office is very hard to maintain 100% of online status while moving. Since not everywhere will you have a wifi spot or 3g/4g connection.

However for really small businesses it may have a future.

don't put your money in a bank, banks can be hacked and credit card details stolen. Store your money/credit card details under your pillow,

At the end of the day, Microsoft has the offline environment covered, and many have tried to beat them at their own game. For Joe Average, this may be a solution, and if it takes off, Microsoft will need to change the rules of their game. Google have finally found a way to offer what Microsoft does not and the "Money Men" will sit up and look because it is cheaper. (for now anyway)

Whoopty do.

And just how is a company going to connect their Chromebooks to the cloud? Is every one of them going to connect to cell towers like our cell phones? I think not. Will they have to connect to a server that will carry the traffic in/out? More than likely. Just my guess. Have any better thoughts I would love to hear them.

Google already has to much information about everyone, and now they will have all of the top business secret files. This is only safe if more than one company can do it.

It seems to me that Cloud Computing is the same philosophy as time sharing in the 1970. It cost too much to have the hardware and expertise locally so use a terminal to mainframes managed by someone else. When the PC came along users quickly switched because they wanted control. Then the cost effectiveness switched in favour of local hardware and software. Now some suppliers have allowed that to move back the other way. I think that the model is wrong and will quickly switch back. One way that IT professionals will achieve it perhaps is switching from high cost Windows to slightly lower cost Linux particularly on the server side, as many do now. It gets rid of the costly CALs. Many companies do not trust their data being stored in areas outside their control even in countries other than their own with all the legal ramifications of privacy and security. I am not convinced that Cloud computing is a long term winner. We need to learn from history not ignore it.

time-share terminals
centralized mainframe computing
SaaS
Cloud

Same same thing, different brand marketing.

I fear the coming of a time when Microsoft and Google will be heading down the road where we have nothing but thin clients and companies wont need an IT staff anymore. It will take a while but it will become a trend where servers, local OS's, and an IT staff will be a thing of the past.

Your comment made me flash on Pennsylvania smokestacks, who would have thought 70 years ago, ....

Will Chrome OS be compatible with Windows? To what degree?
What about managing Chrome OS? Will there be an equivalent for Active Directory in Chrome OS?
Internet connections are simply too slow and unreliable. Do you realize that regardless of offline caching that users will be very limited if their Internet connection goes down? That's a strong point with PC's and Macs, which are not dependent on an internet connection.
Please wait to make blanket statements such as the title of this article, until there is real supporting evidence. Sure, companies like Logitech are testing Chrome OS, but has anyone adopted it yet? A product must get past the testing stage before it is successful.

It's not a good start to the day when I (yet again) read how companies like Google are doing things that make the money and time I've spent to further my IT career a complete waste and that they're in the business of developing new technology with the intent to put hundreds of thousands of people like myself out of work. Wonderful.

Remember that these things take years to develop. By the time this becomes a major trend you'll have plenty of time to prepare and pivot your career in a direction that fits for you. The need for IT pros is not going away. However, the needs are changing. It's going to be more about project managers, IT consultants, highly training technicians working in big data centers, and software developers. But, even then, those are just the big categories. There will be exceptions and niches. Keep reading. Keep moving forward. You'll find a place where you can serve and make a difference in the IT industry. The world is only relying more on technology and not less. There will continue to be jobs for those who can help connect the dots. Those jobs will just look a little different than they do today.

out of IT. I plan to have another technical business going by that time. If I'm still alive. I work with SMBs and home users. They will always want a network at home, to store their music and video. Sure Netflix/Amazon will change that too; but they will still need a router and a terminal to use the services. This would actually keep me in business all by itself; but I've had five major career changes so far in my life - I'm not the least bit worried.

I know, they are innovative and all, but geez don't make my two degrees and five certificates feel like a complete waste of time.

Their intent, like any other business, is to make money. Automobile manufacturers weren't in business to put buggy whip makers out of work. Calculator makers weren't gunning for the slide rule industry. Spreadsheet makers didn't have the goal of destroying those who printed 3-column bookkeeping ledgers.

There's no way this will be acceptable to any major company's IT security group. It'll be lovely if you already work at Google though.

Hey, I'm a fan of Google but their support stinks. That the biggest obstacle I see to this plan. They are going to have to develop a REAL support network to make this succeed. Wordperfect had an amazing support network but wasn't the cost of support the thing that caused Wordperfect to fail?
If executed correctly, this idea sounds like it is the future but I wouldn't plan on IT jobs disappearing. How many times have you heard predictions of job loss due to new technology only to see it create more jobs? I think it will just change the definition of IT jobs. I believe there is no way people are going to totally give up on-site support for internet support.

in my experience - higher productivity = more jobs; it never fails. I'm not shaking in my boots, but I still think many businesses that have simple requirements will make the move to the cloud, simply because their competitors will, to save money. They won't want to be the one that dies on the vine because of missed opportunity.

do more work.

It's easy enough to find examples and news online of this. Higher productivity = fewer jobs.

Most decision makers at least on the small business side don't have the technical expertise to know if this is a good idea or a bad idea. The concept they can grasp is that it will add to the bottom line. Companies are in business to make a profit not to help out the local economy by employing an IT staff. I foresee many companies rolling out this product, getting their IT staff to get all the bugs worked out, and when everything is working smoothly, saying By-By to their IT staff. As an IT worker I feel it would be in your best interest to prove to the decision makers how this product wouldn't work and would not save money and be a bad idea for the company.

I don't see this as a battle between Chromebooks and more traditional desktop/laptop/network systems. This is more of a battle between Google Apps and traditional office suites. The Chromebook is just another vector Google is using to pull customers in their direction.
For big companies already locked in to, say, a MS environment, I seriously doubt any of them would even give any of this more than a passing glance. They have too much built up around their existing systems, custom apps, etc. Change would be too difficult and too expensive. The ROI would be many years in the making. The CIO would likely get throw out on his/her ear.
However this solution is ideal for the small business environment. Even if they are already locked in to a traditional environment, the scale of the change is manageable. Besides the benefits offered by moving to the cloud, by throwing the Chromebook "bone" in the mix Google is building a deal that will be hard to pass up.

But does it have an RDP client or can it use a VMware view client to access a desktop? If so, we can use it. If not, it's practically worthless for our business, but it will be a nice consumer device.

Ridiculous.

I love the part in the video where they say Google will support everything (even on the phone!) If you've ever tried to get support from Google for anything, A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G, you'll be laughing as hard as I am. They are utterly incapable of human interaction and make it more difficult than getting the attention of a supermodel.

The thing to keep in mind is that IT costs are only relevant to business needs. If I can make a business user 10% more productive with one solution over another that productivity should outweigh the cost of the hardware and support costs. IT isn't typically a revinue stream... they support those who generate revinue. As such these decisions must always be made in light of those who we support.

This whole video is based on a false premise... what do they mean it makes all the configuration etc a thing of the past? ...you still need a machine WITH an operating system on it to run the browser, and the moment you put that on the computer I know I am not the only one who would be loading my own software onto it, because the LAST thing I want is to have to be reliant on an internet connection & web-based applications for everything I do... and there are many types of computing which simply wont run effectively if at all on this thing, so those people will have to run those particular things as they would normally do... its a ridiculous assumption to think this is the end of configuring computers (as was specifically stated in their video)... ok, it IS possible that you could do that within a work environment for SOME people's computers & devices, but that is NOT making it a "thing of the past"... never trust marketing people to make your claims for you, because they will usually opt for making bigger claims than are actually true, which is a bad move, because now you look like LESS than you are (Google Chrome)... just state what is true, nothing more

I'm interested.

So what do you do when the internet conneciton breaks down?
WHen your neighbourhood has no power?

I shall stick to a laptop

I don't think a lot of companies realize what they lose by outsourcing.

I am a software developer and we went through a similar thing with offshore development 10 years ago. The numbers look extremely appealing to the business folks. They just see that they can pay this guy 1/10th of what they are paying their "on staff" developer, never mind the hidden costs, the overruns and the quality of the software. The bottom line savings are so compelling they are willing to overlook all of the negatives.

Offshore development has saved some companies money. Mostly the really large companies that have large project management staffs to compensate for the negatives mentioned above. Many have spent much more that they would have if they would have kept their development staffs intact.

One of the biggest hidden costs I see is the loss of some of the most pragmatic and intelligent people in the organization. When they outsource those people go away. As a technology leader, I have seen the development/IT parts of the company save the business side from making decisions that would have destroyed a company or made the business vastly less efficient..

But I guess its hard to put a monetary value on retaining smart people. If you ask me it's priceless.

I love the idea of all these new devices but I'm still waiting to see them match up with my market realities. My business clients are tethered to cumbersome and expensive software that hasn't been quick to embrace new ways of thinking. They are tethered because there are no other choices in their respective markets. I love the ideas but the reality is that acceptance in these markets is dependent on software developers who need a strong push to get beyond their current thinking. In some of these markets it will take years to accomplish.

As usual, the field of technology moves at a fast pace but those who use it do not. After watching the demise of Vista and the unwillingness of people to move past an archaic XP operating system, I always look upon these new trends with skepticism.

The biggest point made in the article, for me, was the availability of offline apps and interactivity with common devices like cameras and such. Regardless, I'm not sure I can ever accept storing all my information in the cloud where I can't get it once the most recent storm blows through. Plus, I'm still trying to determine where the virus creators are going to go with this and how much harder or easier it will be for them to steal my identity and other important information now that so much more of it will be already out on the internet just waiting to be cracked. So, yeah, I have concerns that aren't being answered yet by these current computer trends.

I'm still waiting to see when the time is right to get in.

This product is innovative but not the Windows killer. Is this a consumer product or an enterprise product? The level of internet penetration is abysmal in countries where a device like the OLPC made headway, making the mythological ???always on??? connectivity to the internet virtually non-existent, thereby making the device absolutely impossible to use in such terrains. In geographies where we do have the ???always on??? connectivity to the internet, are we ready to let go of our data and store them all in the ???cloud? I think the answer is a categorical ???No???. Penetrating the enterprise market will be so challenging and price point is not reflective of a cheap product. Although, the product is also available at a monthly rental cost, the lack of offline capabilities for the currently supported applications will render the device useless when disconnected from the internet. What would happen if you had to travel to locales with patchy internet connection? Obviously, you still need your laptop or the now forgotten netbooks.

Enterprises are Windows centric, and so are the applications. Most enterprise applications have been designed to run on Windows platform and having a ???good product??? only is not sufficient to attract the masses to this product. Remember the ???Betamax??? and ???VHS??? battle of old. And in recent times, remember Apple and the App Store, against the rest. People and enterprises require computers, laptops etc. because of the applications, not the other way round.

Data theft, immaturity of the cloud (remember the recent outage in Amazon EC2 and previous outages of the Gmail / Google Apps service), identity theft, SLAs, service availability etc. are concerns Google needs to address.

How I wish there could be a server component perhaps branded as ???Google Server??? for enterprises that may be interested in having a ???Private Cloud??? or ???Hybrid Cloud??? which will be a replica of Google Apps, but locally hosted. At least that will take away the concern around information security. There is the plan to have a Citrix Receiver for the Chrome which will allow you to stream Windows applications from the data centre to the device. Yes, it is a VDI type scenario. You may be asking the question, why I don???t just get a dumb terminal to access the resources in my data centre.

http://femiakinsola.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/google-chromebook-beyond-the-hype/

Java Webstart capability would be nice. It would allow users to run custom enterprise accounting apps and graphical design software in addition to other misc things that would not be covered with "cloud" apps--these applications could then store data on company servers. ViewletBuilder is a serious application that could be run in this scenario--and possibly modified to store and work in the "cloud."

I'm not IT, I'm just a skilled user. I've had a data card since way before limits went into place, but now...that 5 gb limit hangs over a user's head like a guillotine. I've hit it myself, resulting in my data card being rendered useless until the roll over date. I read about the Chromebook, and I question how appealing this will be for users who are faced with those data limits, unreliable connection, and complete dead zones. There is nothing more frustrating than being in the "boondocks" and desperately seeking either a signal for your data card OR a wi fi connection to enable a file exchange, email, etc. Our laptops see a lot of "creative" use, such as photographs, audio files, video, and text--how will that work with Chrome? Editing software has a learning curve, and new software means of hours of learning before achieving basic proficiency. We also use a web based site builder for maintaining our website, which won't work with the Chrome browser already.
My partner sees not only data security issues, but also compatibility issues with programs that won't be addressed. We already see that with some software for audio/video editing and the Apple vs. Microsoft issue. This may work for SOME companies and users, but I question whether companies that have a presence outside of urban situations would find this a viable alternative.
I'm of the wait-and-see mindset, but I do have hopes that it will create some competition between Google, Microsoft, and Apple to help keep prices down. Monopolies are never good news to the budget. I want to know how the Chromebooks work in actual use, and whether or not they can have a complete functional use without the internet connection.

I mean Outlook, c'mon it's hard to think of exchange replacement... how bout softwares developed for windows which require HDD space... You cant just ignore them all together... I really like the idea of having everything in the cloud and I think it is possible for me to launch even windows based apps to run from clouds...But dont you guys think this would be just another peice of h/w I would need to buy/posses to make my life easier like iPhone & laptop.... Till the time it doesn't become a replacement to all the unnecessary gadgets I need to carry around, it wont buy the hype!!!!

I'm still waiting for the paperless office that was predicted at the beginning of the big PC boom. How many businesses will stay in business if they lose their internet connection for a few hours or days? As it is now even with 99.9% uptime, a failure of a backbone connection to a rural town or part of a large city puts all those businesses in a "world of hurt". With everything being "In the Cloud", you may as well lock the doors and go home. With a cloud based setup like is being used for the "Chromebook", just think of the economic catastrophe that would occur with a large "Denial-of-service" attack. It wouldn't make any differnce how solid the OS is if you can't reach the servers to load the software on to your hardware.

But what will happen when things like this get Mass Market Appeal?

http://www.infopackets.com/news/hardware/2011/20110510_25_pocket_pc_could_run_windows_xp.htm

They will move Goggles Products to the Overpriced devices that they are and effectively do exactly the same job. Of course Companies like Dell, HP and so on could use them as the basis of their products and simply Undercut Goggles Offerings.

There have been many of these devices announced but this is the first that I've read about from a Major First World Country. That gives it much more of a possibility of getting into the Mass Market and out pricing the places like Goggle who are trying to out Microsoft, Microsoft.

Col

I completely forgot about infopackets! One of my favorite sites, that I hadn't enjoyed for a while. I'll have to pin that to my header! Thanks!

And it's looking better since the site redesign at TR.

Col