back to article Google revives ‘network computer’ with dual-OS assault on MS

One of the great ironies of this year is that Google and Oracle – now owner of Sun and Java – are locked in legal combat. The irony stems from the fact that, even as they bicker, the concept they did more than anyone else to create is back in the limelight. This is what we used to call the thin client, which then morphed into …

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  1. poohbear

    been there done that.

    1997? Don't be silly. Try 95/96.

    And don't forget Netscape was a leading fighter in the game.

    Report from a friend of a friend way back then:

    http://web.archive.org/web/20001003002647/users.lia.net/iandoug/computer/future.htm

    A head honcho from IBM, who read the report, expected the vision to materialise around 2005. Guess things took a bit longer (.com bust got in the way I guess...)

    Oddly enough, a week after this report was given to management, Bill Gates went off by himself for a week and came back with the "Kill Netscape" strategy for IE. So I often wonder if he read it too ...

    1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      @poohbear. Before that, even.

      You really need to look at X Terminals from the like of NCD and Tektronix (and Digital, HP and IBM as well) in the late '80's and early '90's. These were really thin clients using X11 as the display model.

      AT&T Blit terminals (5620, 630 and 730/740) terminals may also fit the bill from about 1983. You might also argue that Sun Diskless Workstations (circa 1982/3) were actually thin clients, but that may be taking things a bit far.

      1. Mark Cathcart
        Pint

        I'll have what he's drinking

        I was part of the IBM Software strategy team back when the IBM Network Station was first punted around, I'd been campaigning for a long time(1988) to get a better approach to corporate end user computing that was more x-terminal like and less PC like. This presentation was one I gave between 1988 and the late 1990's I won best session at a couple of conferences with it.

        http://www.slideshare.net/cathcam/enterprise-workstation-management-from-chaos-to-order-presentation

        The IBM Network Station had a few pluses, it was "mostly" based on the Network Computer profile that Oracle/IBM et al were championing at the time, but it really failed for the following reasons IMHO

        1. It was network boot - if you didn't have connectivity, or the boot server was unreachable you couldn't work

        2. APPS, APPS, APPS - the real loss was not enough Java apps available at the get-go, and poor Java graphics. As soon as you ended up having to do Remote Terminal into a Windows server for the bulk of your work, it drove up the centralized server costs and network bandwidth became a problem. Hard to remember back then wireless was rare, ethernet not 100% reliable and bottlenecked in datacenter often

        3. Lack of local memory even for caching - they typically had only very limited local memory, which effected everything for web pages to Java app load time as there really wasn't enough based on the then price of memory.

        4. Lack of a good, cross platform single sign-on facility. We take the pervasiveness of LDAP and active directory for granted inside organizations for granted now, they were not back then and there was NO OpenID or similar.

        Funny how the pendulum swings, old is new again. A beer? I wish I had one for every old technology thats come back as new...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        X terminals were poorly conceived

        X made the client/server split in the wrong place, requiring all mouse input to go round trip to the server and back before giving feedback to the user. Ever try to draw something with that model on a slow network? Even dumb terminals/thin clients need to be able to perform programmed functionality locally.

        If you're going to count AT&T Blit terminals as "Thin Clients", you might as well also include the venerable IBM 3270 terminals in that category as well.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cloud

    It seems strange that the latest MS advertising campaign here keeps talking about the cloud. Mind when the adverts run, they seem to be claiming that MS cloud or Windows 7, or something MS do either -

    - Photo editing (thought that was Adobe Photoshop or Gimp)

    - Provide a HDMI Cable to connect PC to a telly

    But they do keep banging on about the cloud.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Everyone's banging on about 'the cloud'

      And from the sound of it 90% of people using it don't really know what it means.

      I guess that's what happens when marketing pick up on a term.

      1. PsychicMonkey
        Coat

        marketing

        think of clouds as those things that the white stuff falls from.

        since they are so fond of white stuff they can't get enough of the cloud....

      2. John Sanders
        Linux

        A few months ago

        The hot marketing term was "innovation", I too hate when marketing empty-head drones show no mercy with a semi-technical word

  3. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Yawn.....

    ...same old same old.

    Ask youself this...Why?

    Here the simple answer. How many people use old XP machines, with old copies of Office, old photoshops, old coipes of this and that. Why, well it works, they are used to it and they don't want to pay to upgrade.

    Now with the new cloudy solution, you can, sorry WILL, have the latest version whether you like it or not. Don't want a Facebook connecter in your office app. Tough shit, they think it's a good idea, so you'll have it.

    Next, you haven't paid for that app for a decade, well that's not on. Now you get to use the new shitter version for a mere £5 a month, sorry £6, no wait £10, but hey it comes with a new facebook plugin!

    You no what, we've decide we don't want to provide this service anymore as it's costs to much money. yeah yeah, I know you have all your work on the, but hey, fuck off, like we care. However for a mere £50 a month you can migrate to our new "premium" platform,,. complete with twitter addon. You have 14 days from the mail to get you stuff off. Ahh your away for 2 weeks, oh well.

    1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
      Badgers

      Not for the likes of you and me

      And I'm surprised that it's for anyone, but it's said there's a sucker born every minute.

      How much they are 'suckers' remains to be seen - and I can reel off why it wouldn't work for me and shouldn't work for anyone else, but it seems I'm not everyone else. And I'm not really judging fairly anyway.

      I've set up Remote Desktops for PC's and I have to admit I was impressed. Coming from when mainframes were the order of the day how could I not be? I've also had a browser linked to my TV for a while now so the notion of 'cloud' isn't particularly new, just that my 'cloud' is nailed down in the back room.

      The mobile/portable world has moved quite quickly in the past few years while industry tries to work out what people want or will buy, in a period where equipment capability and speeds have massively increased, costs have dropped and connectivity never dreamed of exists, while 'computing' has branched off into 'social networking' and, bizarre to me, similar trends.

      I wouldn't dispute that people are putting themselves into the hands of people who are looking to exploit and control them but maybe it's the 'new rock 'n' roll' that us oldsters just don't get? Let them have their 'sixties revolution'; it may end in tears, we might not understand it nor want it, but I wouldn't begrudge them walking the path. After all, it's up to them. If they want to play the 'nonsense game' we reject that's their choice.

      For me, I'll pick and choose. If it seems good and VFM then I'll perhaps buy into it to the degree I want to.

  4. Jemma
    FAIL

    ... methinks we have been here before, BOFH ...

    http://bofh.ntk.net/BOFH/1998/bastard98-04.php

  5. ForthIsNotDead
    Thumb Down

    The thing is...

    ...no one cares about this stuff.

    People will still go on using Win XP or Linux.

    We just don't care enough...

    "Runs in "the cloud" blah blah blah" - yeah, whatever...

    Not only that, but I and I'm sure others don't want their data stored 'in the cloud' (on a server for those around the age of 40) where Google can analyse it and serve me adverts based on its content.

    Further more, I don't want to held to ransom for my own data whenever they decide to charge me for it, which they will. Eventually.

    Can we have a "shrug" or a WTFC? Icon?

  6. the_kramer

    the cloud is the new "the network is the computer"

    Serious data will never be stored in clouds, no matter what Oracle or Google wants. Big business will not store critical data in clouds for obvious reason.

    A tablet (be it Andoid, WP7 or something) comes handy for surfing and checking email, but that's about it, while the computing needs of people and especially businesses are far more than that.

    So the "light" OS'es definitely have a future, but they'll never displace Windows on desktops.

    1. MGJ
      FAIL

      G-Cloud?

      Please someone tell government IT heads in the UK that; despite a complete absence of cash or business case, they are pressing on with the creation of a government cloud. Civil servants sit in offices with LAN connections, they are knowledge workers, their security staff wont let them have WIFI access, so how the hell is this where they might go?

    2. Richard Plinston

      @ the_kramer

      You miss the point entirely. Businesses may not store data in commercial clouds, but they can have in-house clouds where they maintain control over _all_ their data rather than having it scattered over many desktop machines.

      Currently they do this with Citrix/TSE in a rather expensive way because it needs both fat desktops _and_ fat servers.

    3. Doug Glass
      Go

      Corporate World

      Seems you have a fair measure of understanding of the corporate mindset and culture. Obviously one person who read your comment is totally clueless of how the big boys run their shops,

    4. greggo
      Alert

      premise/conclusion mismatch

      What if they have a 'light OS' on the desktop and the data and app are on a company server(s) rather than a cloud? Security problem fixed. Backup sorted, too. Roof leaked all over your 'computer'? Here's another one, get back to work. Do you have any idea how many of those 'indispensable' Windows desktops are basically just running a browser (plus antivirus of course)? Not all of them, by any means. But a lot. 60% might not be too high.

  7. Lamont Cranston
    FAIL

    "put corporate systems administrators out of work"

    Having. A. Laugh.

    Centralising IT support is a fool's game.

    Are Google going to build the world's biggest ever call centre?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      What a horrible quote

      I don't think that guy has any idea what IT does - as much as I am a fan of the ChromeOS model (not Google and not to discount the many security concerns people have about them) but that guy needs to be muzzled or fired.

      1. Maty
        FAIL

        This was a tech guy?

        "He also said he hoped this would put corporate systems administrators out of work because software updates would be made automatically over the web."

        Because sysadmins do nothing but install software updates. Yeah, sure.

        What planet did the Reg say this genius was from?

        1. THUFIR HAWAT
          FAIL

          IE6

          I infer that this is a reference to IE6 and why sysadmins don't install it, but that's just guesswork.

    2. Mark Cathcart
      Thumb Down

      Is anyone home

      It's clear that they are mastering voice and search, soon the worlds biggest call center will just be voice activated search... no people needed

      What no muppet avatar

  8. Mage Silver badge
    Badgers

    Right and Wrong.

    Some sorts of apps and users can be "served" by "clould"

    Most PC applications won't be.

    Performance

    Security

    Reliablity

    Privacy

    Connectivity

    Specialisation

    Data transfer quantity (True HD content? ha ha ha) Compare Broadcast (DVB) with 10,000 users watching HD IPTV 4 hrs a day. Or 10,000 users watching VOD IP vs local BD (BluRay) for 2 hrs a day.

  9. Bilgepipe
    Gates Horns

    Microsoft

    MS have a loooong way to go, they are three-four years behind other mobile OSs and I simply don't believe they are agile enough to catch up. We'll have iOS 5 and Android 3 coming out just as MS gets copy-and-paste working.

    I'm inclined to agree with predictions that MS will end up in a "race to the bottom" behind iOS and Android.

  10. Mark .

    Data

    Who owns the data? And what if the service is shut down because they think you violate the TOS?

    For the IPad, I agree they aren't PC replacements, but even for this:

    "but mainly ones PCs aren't very good at – anything involving touch, of course, plus viewing videos or books"

    Since when were netbooks and laptops not good at this? I do both just fine on mine. And I'd say they're better suited, as you can just place it on your lap with the screen angled just right, where as the IPad has to be held in your hands.

    "not just netbooks, whose popularity as the leading companion device has already been eclipsed by the tablet."

    Tablets now sell more than netbooks? Since when?

    "However, according to DisplaySearch analysts, if the iPad is categorised as a mobile PC rather than an oversized iPhone, Apple is now the largest mobile PC vendor in the US,"

    Worldwide, they're smaller than HP and ACER ( http://www.reghardware.com/2010/12/07/displaysearch_q3_2010_mobile_pc_sales/ ). And as that article points out, it ignores smartphones; Nokia sell way more than Apple. It's a rather contrived statistic to handpick a category that counts the IPad as a "mobile PC", but not other handheld mobile computing devices.

    Talking of Nokia, it's odd to have an article covering all the alternatives, but to ignore the number one smartphone company.

  11. Mark .

    copy/paste

    "We'll have iOS 5 and Android 3 coming out just as MS gets copy-and-paste working."

    Apple finally got that at long last?

    I agree it's embarrassing not to have such a basic feature (even my 6 year old cheap feature phone had it), but this criticism applied to Apple too for far too long. Next you'll be saying the IPhone is better because Windows Phone doesn't multitask...

    1. ThomH

      And how many years did it take Nokia to ship a phone with a colour screen?

      The iPhone had a colour screen from day one.

      Please understand the actual point that I'm making.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Economics Work For Locked-Down Applicanes

    Most users are completely fed up with the hassles of

    "you must use a virus scanner"

    " don't click on attachments"

    "never install from dodgySpyware.com"

    "you have to configure the firewall for this-and-that"

    "just change registry key HKEY-LOCAL-BLA/FIDDLE/DIDDLE/LALA to 62736-AFE-2323 and it will work ! "

    "just reinstall you PC, then Skype will work again"

    Users are not mainframe administrators, but the current PC really demands these skills. What they want is a box which allows them to surf the web, make some silly documents and print them, use it as a videophone, purchase stuff on the interwebs.

    They love the locked-down iPhone and if Google can bring them a locked-down Network Computer they will love that. Because they are not the mainframe administrators Microsoft wants them to be.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      Most Windows users are completely fed up

      Here, I fixed it for you!

    2. JEDIDIAH
      Linux

      We have always been at war with eurasia...

      > Users are not mainframe administrators, but the current PC really demands these skills.

      No. WinDOS demands this thing.

      Anything that is automated with the intent of "alleviating the burden" from end users ultimately runs the risk of blurring the lines between data and programs and enabling malware.

      Infact, there is a current PhoneOS vulnerablity of just this sort.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Heart

      Why google

      Users want to surf the web for porn without malicious software getting onto their machine. Windows can't handle that requirement because it is susceptible to attack, and IOS can't handle because it is controlled by a control freak who doesn't want his perfect product sullied by the availability of porn. That leaves google which may be able to deliver what users want. Whether or not they will be successful remains to be seen, but I think they have had a good track record in implementing new technologies so far (although Android has matured too slowly for my tastes.)

      1. ThomH

        @El

        The browser that comes with iOS is entirely open and, even if it weren't, third-party browsers are available — including Opera Mini. Your claims are verifiably false.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Dreaming of clouds

    It will never happen wholesale - even on the platforms most likely to adopt 'cloud' services such as smart phones, who can imaging the most popular apps - say Angry Birds (let's be honest!) being cloud based? Would service providers want users downloading level data dya in day out? No. Would users want their purchases redacted at Steve Job's whim? No. Will people ever entrust their purchases to a disparate set of service providers? Not if they have an iota of sense or choice in the matter.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PCs and tablets

    It's a bit depressing how you need a PC in order to use an iPad. Why can't it do everything over Wi-Fi or 3G like the Amazon Kindle? (Amazon says: "System Requirements: None, because it's wireless and doesn't require a computer." That's the right attitude, in my opinion.)

    Also, when people talk about tablets cannibalising the PC market, they're talking about sales. So it isn't that people are going to throw away their PC and use a tablet instead. However, they might decide to buy a tablet instead of upgrading the PC. Having an iPad is definitely making me think I can probably live with my crappy old laptop a bit longer, now that I'm using it less.

  15. PHPonSnails
    Jobs Horns

    It isn't a standalone device if you still need to plug it in

    Tablets and cloudbooks will only become a serious contender to replace, rather than complement, a standard PC when they're capable of updating and installing whatever software they use, and copying data, entirely over the air without the need for a dedicated host unit. The iPad's biggest weakness is that it has to be connected to a Mac or PC running iTunes in order to transfer data between it and other devices, or even between apps on itself. that's a huge design flaw which is just waiting to be exploited by other manufacturers.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    stab stab stab

    Cloudbook

    Please give up trying to coin new names for things, this is crap.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Cloudbook :

    An efficient suction pump in search for your wallet.

    Dear Lord, so many will fall for this trick! A vast amount of stupidity has accumulated and time has come for it to be monetized. In the country where I was born, there's an old saying for this kind of situation : those who would not open their eyes will soon open their purse.

    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
      Coffee/keyboard

      An efficient suction pump in search for your wallet.

      That is brilliant!!

    2. John Sanders
      Linux

      I hereby give you

      The master priceless ultra super mega turbo best post award!

  18. Will Godfrey Silver badge

    Bloody Stupid

    The whole edifice is as stable as a house of cards sitting on a snowball in the Sahara.

    Therefore I fully expect it to be widely implemented by governments (and banks) across the world at great expense and no benefit to ordinary people.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      You're right, mate!

      It's a stable!

  19. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    Computers without any real storage?

    Hmm.

    I have this tremendous feeling of deja vu

    (all over again)

    as many have noted

    (again)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: Computers without any real storage

      Except these days we have cheap flash memory modules, relatively high capacity high speed compact size, so we're not quite as much at the mercy of the network or the server. And we are generally a lot more more connected than before, both in terms of infrastructure and socially.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Linux not yet ready for the netbook

    The condensed version of the article ...

  21. Inachu

    I see it now.

    I predict that Google will ship 3 kinds of computers:

    The Cloud model that they want everyone to move to.(purchasing agents)

    The NC computer that still runs things locally.(GAMERS)

    The unconnected Chrome OS that is highly modified for people who need portability and for developers.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    The History of the Net PC

    "We have to work with Intel and its just crazy to get cross-wise with them. I hope we can reach an agreement here it's awful to have Intel sending a contrary message. They did 2 things that amaze me:"

    "a) They kept the NC specification around despite saying they would not."

    "b) They snuck in a server specification."

    "There is some failure in communication, I don’t understand why things are so out of whack at this late stage."

    http://edge-op.org/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/2000/PX02799.pdf

    "- Expose the NC as Dead to the press and analyst: We will spend a considerable amount of our time focused on educating the press about the pitfalls of the NC in order to generate “the NC is Dead” press articles. This will cumulate in a press and analyst tour in March, coinciding with Interact World in LA. Prior to the tour, we will be delivering monthly Windows TCO wins to the press, as well as NC trial/rejecter case studies. We’ll leverage our Net.PC and WBT OEM and Partner successes, and utilize the web, onLine news banners, and other online delivery channels to get this information to our customers"

    http://edge-op.org/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/2000/PX02817.pdf

    "On the NetPC - Pat thinks we are being slow to follow-up and get the spec's out, and he is telling his guys to go ahead and start drafting. They want to have a review for the industry i January. We need to engage with them, and get ahead of them, and get the OEMs involved"

    http://edge-op.org/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/2000/PX02597.pdf

  23. Don Mitchell

    Thin Clients...the road to serfdom

    The question is, will users and developers be tricked into giving up the empowerment of personal computers (Macs or PCs) in favor of centralized ownership and timesharing.

  24. greggo
    Thumb Down

    20 year old code in linux vs 20 year old MS code

    20 year old code in linux (or older) is, by and large, still there because it was done properly 20 years ago. 20 year old microsoft code is, in many cases, still there because they mismanaged the migration/compatibility process coming up from the mud of CP/M and DOS, and can't fix it now without breaking things that are far newer than CPM and DOS. Try creating a file called 'con.txt' or even 'Con.Air.divx.avi' on your windows machine. The reasons why you can't do this represent a pretty big fail. And, it's too late now: many (even brand new) apps need to know certain names are impossible to avoid being DOSd, so MS can't fix it without breaking all those apps. This is just one example. Also, drive letters. Drive letters? in 2010?

    1. kain preacher

      Drive letters

      You do know you don't need drive letters since XP. You can mount hard drive like you do in Linux. Most folks don't

      1. greggo
        FAIL

        right, but does it actually work?

        Ok, but if you do this, can you determine the amount of free space on the drive? Can you defrag it? Will applications give you wrong information about the space available? The 'normal' Win32 API for getting free space, AFAIK, specifies the drive, not the directory. I think this capability was available decades ago in DOS, but it was done basically as a last resort and it did make it impossible to find out basic information about the mounted drive. This is the point: the POSIX file system semantics (hard links, sym links, etc) and the two-level view (block device vs. file system) have been nailed down for decades, and for decades all of the utilities (especially tar, du, cp, find) have known about them all and are able to deal with them properly. By contrast, Microsoft 'threw in' things like drive mounting and 'subst' and failed to support them properly with APIs and utilities. Example: NTFS added 'access time' to file system. and Windows made it useless since the only way to read it via gui -- the 'property' display -- causes the 'access' time to be set to 'now'. Fail. Example: NTFS allows hard links, and files named 'Aa' and ''aA" in the same directory (via ill-conceived 'posix' subsystem API) but if you do this you've effectively corrupted the FS since basic file utilities will be baffled by it. (I have often, without intending to, created files in NTFS volumes using cygwin which cannot be copied or deleted except using cygwin. I'm not even sure how). System features which aren't properly supported will get little use, and if little used, real support won't arrive. Not useful features then.

    2. Hans 1
      Coffee/keyboard

      Holy shit!!!!

      I created an app at a customers' that saves data in text files with three-lettered names ... file names are semi random ... that means that it will break the day it tries to create a file named con.txt ... Holy fsck ...

      Thank god I do not work there anymore ... LOL!

  25. jonathanb Silver badge

    Not sure it will work

    I can see Android fondle slabs overtaking the iPad in market share at some point and carving their own niche in the market. At home they will function as the giant iPod touches they essentially are, and the larger screen will mean more use for video, web-browsing, and possibly ebooks. Though with ebooks, I think they will be used in situations where greater interactivity is required or beneficial rather than as dead-tree replacement ebooks from the iBooks / Kindle store or similar.

    I can also see Android tablets replace rugged laptops in many mobile worker applications, such as the laptop car repair people plug into your car to see what the engine management system is reporting or engineers use to control complex machinery or to take survey measurements.

    For netbooks, people generally expect to get an ultra-portable laptop that does everything a normal sized computer can do. You can of course get such a thing if you are prepared to pay, but as technology moves on, the c£300 price point machines will get ever closer to that ideal. For anyone who doesn't want to play games, edit photos or do anything with videos, your average netbook is already there, and it is getting closer to managing those other things as well. For that reason, I don't think Crome OS will manage to replace Windows XP or Windows 7 in the netbook market.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Proof that half the "user base" are complete idiots

    "52 per cent of the total base really wanted a tablet running a Microsoft OS"

    Microsoft OSes, and the applications that run on them, are designed for a WIMP (Window, Icon, Menu, Pointing device) interface. They are virtually impossible to use on a touchscreen device without a keyboard. So half the users don't get the fact that all their favorite apps are going to have to have the user interface completely redesigned anyway, thus there is zero benefit to their tablet running Windows!

  27. Doug 3

    many friends are migrating their parents to Macs

    supporting Windows for the parental units is a constant battle and I'm seeing many upgrade to Macs and are surprised their parents are so good at adapting. Couple this kind of thinking with the supposed ease of use of Chrome OS and the low cost of Chrome OS devices and it's a good start.

    Speaking of low cost, one of the BIG feature bullet points for the NC(Network Computer) was it's $500 cost. At the time, most computers were costing $800 and up so a stripped down but functional $500 computer seemed like a great idea and reduced maintenance was supposed to help sales further.

    What Larry and Scott missed was how quickly Intel and Microsoft would react and how quickly cheap $500 Windows PCs would show up on the market. The same kind of thing occurred with the netbook when they first hit the market. Prices were typically less than $300, Linux based and with flash storage and still generally good low end GP usage. Along comes Microsoft with dirt cheap Windows XP licensing combined with marketing program payoffs and the hardware got more costly, got hard disks, and in many cases, the Linux models got more expensive too for whatever reason. The threat was mitigated and thereby diffused.

    What's interesting about the Chrome OS devices is that they can and will run on ARM along with x86. Microsoft will have to attack the manufacturers to prevent ARM devices from getting produced but this time there's Google money involved too. They will not stand still and let Chrome OS devices have a shot without doing what they do best, stop production and make sure Windows is sold on the devices one way or another. But seeing what Windows Phone 7 turned out to be, I don't think Microsoft has the same ability to fight off Chrome OS, Android, and iOS devices and get anywhere.

    Maybe the NC v2 will have a chance to find a market or at least let consumers decide.

  28. mraak
    WTF?

    What about cloud in the clouds?

    If I take my cloud (book) on the airplane and into the clouds. Could I use it then? That's like sort of a the primary reason for having a netbook, so you can take it around on trips without displacing your shoulder on the way.

  29. Sirius Lee
    FAIL

    Self-serving nonsense

    Of course Oracle and Google want cloud services and thin clients. *They* make money from selling on-line services (Google) or the hardware/software to run them (Oracle). They don't make money on the client. Duh!

    The real question is do *users* not Google and Oracle want their apps, data, IP and everything else on their servers? The answer is going to be "sometimes" (and there will be those who say "always" and those who say "never"). Which means a thin device is only going to work "sometimes".

    For all other instances users will need a non-thin client. The only question is: where's the balance? My guess is that the Windows desktop is here to stay that smartphones and other devices like the iPad will become more capable of providing the "sometimes" solution leaving a small niche for the Google OS.

    1. Hans 1
      Grenade

      Which data

      Well, it all depends on which data you want on the cloud and how it is saved. If the cloud is just storage, and you can encrypt your data, why not ...

      I for one would love to have my browser preferences central ... whichever computer I use, the same favorites ... but I doubt google could get that right, they cannot even get my google search preference saved with my gmail account.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Jolicloud Linux/ the cloud

    I've been reading reviews of jolicloud, and I've got to say "where's the reg review ?" because it's already active provide ease of installation for apps like a mobile phone and yet retain functionality even when the cloud is not available like travelling on a train. Seems like a small group of French engineers have made a system that integrates the cloud and the netbook into a seamless shared model and come up with a more practical solution than bot sun and google and developed what chrome should have been.

    No I'm not affiliated with them, the only one thing I disagree stringly with is that you can sign up with facebook account and that's just too much.

  31. Chika
    Badgers

    I really must...

    ...start up my old RISC OS system sometime. All this talk of network computers is making me nostalgic.

  32. /dev/null
    FAIL

    History FAIL

    "Corona" was the codename for the Sun Ray, launched in 1999. The last JavaStation model was launched in 1998, and the Sun Ray essentially superseded it. There was never a "Sun Ray consumer device" - how exactly would that have worked? The Sun Ray is basically a graphics terminal that speaks ALP or RDP.

  33. Mad3218
    Flame

    Cluods!

    Maybe I'll get what I actually have been looking for. One machine with no inernet connection at all and one for the rest of the world to hack!

  34. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Do not want

    @El, not really true. X does support telling the X server (i.e. thin client) to update the mouse cursor based on location, to sent events to the remote program just when the mouse crosses certain boundaries, etc. But it's up to the app to use this properly instead of polling mouse position, and some don't. Also, the 3270 *was* a thin client for it's time, albeit a specialized one -- instead of the significant (at least in the 80s) overhead of every keystroke going from the terminal to the server, the server would send the layout for a form, and all keystrokes (arrow keys, backspace, etc.) were handled on the terminal until the form was fully filled out, then just the contents of the filled-in form was sent to the server.

    That said, I think network computers are a fail from the start, quite simply having some local storage these days costs almost nothing. Second, even while the cost per byte of PROVIDING services drops, providers are increasing costs (Verizon has gone from $60 for unlimited to $60 for 5GB in the last few years, or $30 for unlimited on phones. AT&T is even worse, going from $30 unlimited on phones to $25 for 2GB (and then STILL charging extra to tether with those same 2GB). All these wired ISPs keep talking about instituting unreasonble limits too. And instead of a throttle at the cap, it's cash charges at the cap. And so on.) If you avoid Windows like the plague there just aren't these rampant security problems.

    @Titus Technophobe, yes in my view this is Microsoft being Microsoft. They entirely and utterly failed at anything resembling true "cloud computing" so they figure they'll dilute the term until it's completely meaningless. It's just as they did with netbooks -- "If we can't have the market, nobody else can either" (they essentially destroyed the netbook market by having netbook makers -- that were making nice Linux netbooks -- increase specs more and more to accomodate Windows bloat until what should have been a $200 netbook cost over $400 -- which just makes it a mini notebook). (Cloud computing already was pretty much a hype term, but seemed to involve using virtualization or sandboxing on a data center or computing cluster to provide services to customers -- what was called utility computing 20 or 30 years ago. To Microsoft it seems to be anything involving Microsoft products.)

  35. Rex Alfie Lee
    Joke

    I found my G-spot...

    up there in a cloud somewhere over a fucking rainbow, way up high...

  36. Rex Alfie Lee
    Linux

    I really hope MS fail...

    Die WM7, just hurry up & have a very sad & ignoble death you horrible nasty...

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