SOA.WRK.

Google Chrome, a solid foundation for modern web applications

Another great project!! Google released the long awaited Google browser, Chrome, in open source today. Officially, Google said Chrome is not a web operating system, but a solid foundation for modern web applications.

However, the fact is that Chrome+Gears is very close to a virtual operating system for Google software, i.e., web applications. The combination makes the underlying client-side OS transparent allowing the same Google software to be run on many platforms including phones and PCs. The resulting user experience is very much like having a ubiquitous Google OS where:

• Google software can be installed and run on many devices including phones and PCs
• Google software can be pre-loaded on devices and PCs to boost market share
• Google software can run both on-line and off-line using cached data
• Google software can have desktop shortcuts and run in its own window like regular applications
• Google software can use platform specific desktop APIs to, e.g., indexing files on windows
• Google software are available for search, chat, email, calendar, database, office applications, enterprise applications, shopping, read news, blogs, games, and more...

The sad thing is that while writing this blog. It reminds me much of the same feeling I had when seeing another browser product for the first time in 1995 named HotJava. One question I asked to the Sun engineer did the demo at that time was that can javascript be compiled and run on the Java VM? He replied "No!". Now, whether V8 can run Java bytecode or not is probably not an important question anymore... (Note: It is interesting to find out that the lead of HotSpot created V8, see page 13 of the Google Chrome comic book.)

Posted at 08:17PM Sep 02, 2008 by tientienli in Personal  |  Comments[3]