Spending the day at google makes for a great mind-bending exercise on where they see the future of computing.
Here is what I see coming down the oo's tubes.
Google has denied that they are making an OS. I 100% believe them. They don't care. Especially about the desktop.
The desktop is dying. In the future we will have two types of machines: Mobile devices, and 'smart-dumb terminals'. The smart-dumb terminals, as I am henceforth dubbing them, will have some OS, and a moderate (probably still high by today's standards) ammt of computing power and a trivial ammt of disk space.
Google is feverishly investing in both of these areas, with AppEngine, Android, gears, local, social, gwt (for 'enterprise') etc, etc, etc. They are creating the tools to take computing in this direction.
They have perfected the art of web scale, and that will make prove to be their most valuable asset in this new computing world. With this, they get developers everywhere to lock-in to their (admittedly wonderful) tools. What they do is create the base for all of these tools, and let great developers show them off, which creates Google's user base for them.
It's a very impressive plan for a company who says "don't be evil". Quite subversive compared to most other models that other (non-named) companies have taken to get developers to buy-in (quite literally) to their product.
How do you get developers? Make the tools better than the current tools. Give the tools away for free.
Happy googling everyone.
#io2008 *(just a tag for searches, until keywords are fully supported in Servee).
11th January 2009
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I'm Issac. I live in Oakland. I make things for fun and money. I use electronics and computers and software. I manage teams and projects top to bottom. I've worked as a consultant, software engineer, hardware designer, artist, technology director and team lead. I do occasional fabrication in wood and plastic and metal. I run a boutique interactive agency with my brother Kasey and a roving cast of experts at Kelly Creative Tech. I was the Director of Technology for Nonchalance during the The Latitude Society project. I was the Lead Web Developer and then Technical Marketing Engineer at Nebula, which made an OpenStack Appliance. I've been building things on the web and in person since leaving Ohio State University's Electrical and Computer engineering program in 2007. Lots of other really dorky things happened to me before that, like dropping out of high school to go to university, getting an Eagle Scout award, and getting 6th in a state-wide algebra competition. I have an affinity for hopscotch.