“Open source is clearly an important part of making that happen:
it brings the unit cost of software close to zero. But there’s
still the small matter of the hardware to be paid for. In fact,
costs there can also be brought right down, since Chromium is
optimised for netbook form factors. As Google noted at the launch
of its new operating system:“First, it’s all about the web. All apps are web apps. The
entire experience takes place within the browser and there are no
conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to
deal with installing, managing and updating programs.“That also means you don’t need hard discs or even much RAM. It
also emphasised:“Most of all, we are obsessed with speed. We are taking out
every unnecessary process, optimizing many operations and running
everything possible in parallel. This means you can go from turning
on the computer to surfing the web in a few seconds. Our obsession
with speed goes all the way down to the metal. We are specifying
reference hardware components to create the fastest experience for
Google Chrome OS.”
Would You Accept Google’s Free Netbook?
By
Glyn Mody
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