Web OS: the future of one illusion
The Internet is more profitable than the real world. And not only in terms of spiritual comfort. Selling over the Internet is much more profitable than in a store: the buyer does not have to go anywhere, and the seller does not need to rent anything in the shopping center. Store data in
The Internet is much more convenient than on a home computer: any information is available from anywhere, if there is access to the network (we will say more about this if). Well and, the main thing - on the Internet, the further, the more it becomes possible not to pay for services, and instead just watch ads. Even reacting to it is not necessary.
The main service in the digital world was and remains software products - thanks to which a modern computer turned from a tool for scientists into a household appliance. Since the early eighties, software has shaped the computer market: the cheaper it is, the clearer and more functional it is, the better the computer to which it was attached was sold. People bought a computer and then bought, bought and bought software - accessories and service always bring more profits in any mass market than the product itself, and it always has been.
Sweet Web 2.0 Vinegar
')
And it would be - until April 1, 2004. On this sunny day, Google launched its mail service GMail. Not everyone immediately understood what had happened - many simply decided that Google had released a toy for geeks, an ordinary mail service, which already was a lot - only using Ajax, and ... - if it were not for this "and", then they would be right . Soon GMail was already in no way inferior to regular mail clients, and dozens of clones and tapped versions from competitors were added to it. For the first time in history
geeks, along with ordinary people, began to read mail through the web interface and store it on the server, and not pick it up via POP3.
Meanwhile, Google Calendar and Google Docs came out, which encroached not only on the sphere of Internet applications, but also on the holy of holies - office programs. They also brought analogs and new standards. Web applications are still inferior in functionality to their desktop brothers, but everyone understands that this is only for now. Because these are not just web applications - these are free applications.
What I will say now may seem funny, but the first step to this was made by none other than Microsoft. In pursuit of a lost web browser market, they tried to defeat Netscape, and chose a win-win tactic: they released IE4, the most fully-featured browser at that time, and started distributing it for free. And it is unlikely that those who made this tactical decision foresaw its strategic consequences - having won the browser market, Microsoft released, in fact, a free platform for downloadable applications.
IE4 understood not only HTML, but also programming languages ​​(JavaScript and VBScript), could exchange data with the server (and hard disk) without reloading the page and, albeit with reservations and restrictions, considered the HTML document as an object model. Mozilla Firefox and Opera rushed after him very quickly, and then the exotic
Safari. By 2004, all of them were full-fledged platforms for creating applications that are downloaded from the Internet, store data on a server, and — something that Microsoft could not foresee at all in 1998 — do not depend on the operating system (the full functionality of IE4 was very platform-dependent from client, and from server side).
For a long time, web applications only dealt with some specific tasks, but soon the Internet became faster and cheaper, and browsers were more powerful, and after 2004 the question arose: if you can do practically anything in the browser, then why do you need an operating system at all? So far this is not an extra layer between the browser and the web application - but for how long?
There will be nothing, there will be only TV
As practice shows, both manufacturers and users of software are morally ready to switch to the Internet OS. The Internet now occupies a much more space in the life of an ordinary user than 5-6 years ago, and from today's computer novices (and they are people of different ages), it is not rare to hear the questions - will their Mail.ru account remain if they buy a new one? iron, or why on the computer you can restore the file from the Recycle Bin, and a comment on the forum is impossible. The further, the more the consciousness of users will not distinguish between local and external data, especially since the developers of the most popular OSes have done a lot for this and continue to do so.
Manufacturers of operating systems have many different reasons to integrate with the web, and first of all it is the fear of being unprepared for a decisive start when the technical and psychological state of the computer market will allow launching the project codenamed Web OS in open navigation. The producers of web applications, primarily Google, have no less reasons - who, if not they, have a ready-made product base now? Battle for supremacy in non-existent
so far the world of high-speed Internet has been deployed with might and main, however, no matter how clear a strategy has yet been proposed, so far the winner is still a serious matter.
One head is good, but it isn’t
At the moment we have the three most popular user operating systems and one major web software manufacturer. All of them are taking some steps in this direction, and all of them are clearly insufficient. First of all, because the Internet is not only the Web, and no one knows what will happen next. So far, the Web is the most popular platform for working out methods and prototypes of the future Web OS, but
lay on decisive action before the technology will return to the ideology of the terminals, everyone is afraid.
By the way, in the early two thousandth attempts to organize work through the terminals within the LAN were very popular, and I myself watched one of them as part of a small IT organization. Honestly, I did not understand for a long time why all these attempts failed. From a managerial point of view, organizing the work of a company through a single server, from which only monitors and keyboards come, is very convenient and in terms of control over
human resources, and in terms of equipment costs. In reality, however, everything was not so simple: the performers constantly lacked the functionality of their terminals, and attempts to expand it were faced with unforeseen technical limitations. The situation when everything should work in theory, but in practice it goes out for itself, is familiar even now to those who are connected with the organization of labor through the Web.
In conditions when important business processes directly depend on an unclean sysadmin in an office-provider, and transferring several tens of gigabytes from Moscow to Kostroma is faster by car than via FTP, waiting for a terminal policy triumph is stupid.
Pockets, handbags
But do not prepare for it no less stupid. In any case, because in addition to the computer there is another very developed area of ​​functioning of communicative technologies, in which the terminal principle won a decisive and unconditional victory. This is a mobile connection. It was possible to ignore it for a long time, because, despite the development of protocols, the user functionality itself was rather weak. But then came the iPhone, which, perhaps, does not have any capabilities, but those that it possesses are used by people, and not just know that they hypothetically have them. Its appearance has spurred other manufacturers, and now the mobile Web is gaining momentum every month.
All four Chinese participate in this fight, in which even without them there are enough contenders for world domination. Apple launches iPhone with mobile OS X, mobile Linux is tried by Nokia and Motorola (there is also OpenMoko, but there, like in the whole Linux-world, there is an abyss of opportunities and thousandths of a percent of users), Windows Mobile is increasingly squeezing popular Symbian, Google has released its Android and they all look to the American success of the Blackberry OS.
At the same time, all the major players are trying to gain a foothold in uncharacteristic spheres, trying to cover everything that is possible - both the desktop, and the Web, and the phones. Both Apple, and Microsoft, and the Linux-community have their own operating systems for computers, for smartphones, and their own web services (for Linux, however, they are implemented quite in the spirit of geeks, but they are). Google has desktop applications, but its desktop OSes
no - maybe that's why people expect Web OS from him.
Five damned questions
What is needed to make the Web OS still appear? The first answer is obvious: the data transfer rate should increase. At the same time, no one knows how this data will be transmitted: via some new cable or via satellite, via WiFi / WiMax or completely new wireless technologies (and how to deal with the coverage areas?), Or 3G will win (in Japan, discuss 4G). Or, in general, none of the above will work, and the Internet will be transmitted by meter-wide TV frequencies
after switching to digital tv. Until it becomes clear exactly how ultra-fast communication will run to us, nothing concrete can be planned or designed.
Secondly , it is not very clear what will happen with the devices themselves. On the one hand, we see the pendulum swinging in the direction of decreasing the size of the devices. It always happens until some more productive, but size-critical technology appears. Remember how cumbersome the first CD players were compared to
micro cassette recorders? Computers are getting smaller, laptops are becoming more popular - but the triumph of nanotechnology is still not fast, and performance requirements may well hit the size of devices. Therefore, it is not very clear what to bet on - a traditional window interface with a manipulator control, where each area in the screen space plays a role, or a touchpad, in which there are completely different laws of spatial management organization? Microsoft, as we know, to large touchpads, the further the stronger, Apple, on the contrary,
does not want to go beyond the iPhone, developing the phones separately, and the computers separately (which his Jobs can’t wait for a long time is the Tablet PC).
The third question is the question of data storage. How to deal with privacy? Botnets and spyware flooded today's Internet, and without disconnecting from it, it is impossible to feel safe; the concept of Web OS also implies full confidence in the server of others. What to do with personal control over information? Copies on external media are always safer, because only you yourself are responsible for their safety and
sure about her. But if we allow external media - why do we need the web then?
Fourth: yes, the web is convenient for browsers. But we must not forget that HTTP and hypertext in general is a powerful tool, but not universal and not optimal for all tasks (why do you think WebDAV will not force out FTP?) If we have the entire operating system will be one big browser - why should it be a web browser?
And, finally, what I started this column with - and what about the money? The development and support of today's OS is already worth a lot of money - and if you add to it also a fee for communication? How about this to be if we continue to look at Google, which does not charge money from the user for working with applications?
You do not remember when we have the end of the world?
All these problems, as well as those that I forgot to mention, must be resolved before we ask ourselves the question - and when will the day finally come, and “there will be nothing, only television will be”. Obviously, the client-server concept will gradually grow into the concept of a terminal-computer, with which the whole digital history began: the pendulum will definitely swing back. But hardly Google, Microsoft, Apple or
(God forgive me) The Linux community is able today to imagine what it will look like in reality.
We can see how Microsoft is crushing its slim WinAPI pyramid, introducing the technology with the talking name .NET, and attaching consumers of its desktops, phones and game consoles to the MS Live web service. We are watching live as Apple struggles and scratches, but transforms its ridiculous .Mac web service into something more modern called Mobile Me, uniting all of their MP3 players, phones and computers into a single user space. We follow Google on the web and on mobile platforms. All of them now outline the contours of
they call it the first remote operating system - as soon as the answers to the questions are found, and the new hour X will strike.
I would like it to break through on April 1st.
Taken:
Alexey Trankov
≡ Soft | 06/23/2008 15:06
webplanet.ru/column/soft/trankov/2008/06/23/web-os.html
The Internet is much more convenient than on a home computer: any information is available from anywhere, if there is access to the network (we will say more about this if). Well and, the main thing - on the Internet, the further, the more it becomes possible not to pay for services, and instead just watch ads. Even reacting to it is not necessary.
The main service in the digital world was and remains software products - thanks to which a modern computer turned from a tool for scientists into a household appliance. Since the early eighties, software has shaped the computer market: the cheaper it is, the clearer and more functional it is, the better the computer to which it was attached was sold. People bought a computer and then bought, bought and bought software - accessories and service always bring more profits in any mass market than the product itself, and it always has been.
Sweet Web 2.0 Vinegar
')
And it would be - until April 1, 2004. On this sunny day, Google launched its mail service GMail. Not everyone immediately understood what had happened - many simply decided that Google had released a toy for geeks, an ordinary mail service, which already was a lot - only using Ajax, and ... - if it were not for this "and", then they would be right . Soon GMail was already in no way inferior to regular mail clients, and dozens of clones and tapped versions from competitors were added to it. For the first time in history
geeks, along with ordinary people, began to read mail through the web interface and store it on the server, and not pick it up via POP3.
Meanwhile, Google Calendar and Google Docs came out, which encroached not only on the sphere of Internet applications, but also on the holy of holies - office programs. They also brought analogs and new standards. Web applications are still inferior in functionality to their desktop brothers, but everyone understands that this is only for now. Because these are not just web applications - these are free applications.
What I will say now may seem funny, but the first step to this was made by none other than Microsoft. In pursuit of a lost web browser market, they tried to defeat Netscape, and chose a win-win tactic: they released IE4, the most fully-featured browser at that time, and started distributing it for free. And it is unlikely that those who made this tactical decision foresaw its strategic consequences - having won the browser market, Microsoft released, in fact, a free platform for downloadable applications.
IE4 understood not only HTML, but also programming languages ​​(JavaScript and VBScript), could exchange data with the server (and hard disk) without reloading the page and, albeit with reservations and restrictions, considered the HTML document as an object model. Mozilla Firefox and Opera rushed after him very quickly, and then the exotic
Safari. By 2004, all of them were full-fledged platforms for creating applications that are downloaded from the Internet, store data on a server, and — something that Microsoft could not foresee at all in 1998 — do not depend on the operating system (the full functionality of IE4 was very platform-dependent from client, and from server side).
For a long time, web applications only dealt with some specific tasks, but soon the Internet became faster and cheaper, and browsers were more powerful, and after 2004 the question arose: if you can do practically anything in the browser, then why do you need an operating system at all? So far this is not an extra layer between the browser and the web application - but for how long?
There will be nothing, there will be only TV
As practice shows, both manufacturers and users of software are morally ready to switch to the Internet OS. The Internet now occupies a much more space in the life of an ordinary user than 5-6 years ago, and from today's computer novices (and they are people of different ages), it is not rare to hear the questions - will their Mail.ru account remain if they buy a new one? iron, or why on the computer you can restore the file from the Recycle Bin, and a comment on the forum is impossible. The further, the more the consciousness of users will not distinguish between local and external data, especially since the developers of the most popular OSes have done a lot for this and continue to do so.
Manufacturers of operating systems have many different reasons to integrate with the web, and first of all it is the fear of being unprepared for a decisive start when the technical and psychological state of the computer market will allow launching the project codenamed Web OS in open navigation. The producers of web applications, primarily Google, have no less reasons - who, if not they, have a ready-made product base now? Battle for supremacy in non-existent
so far the world of high-speed Internet has been deployed with might and main, however, no matter how clear a strategy has yet been proposed, so far the winner is still a serious matter.
One head is good, but it isn’t
At the moment we have the three most popular user operating systems and one major web software manufacturer. All of them are taking some steps in this direction, and all of them are clearly insufficient. First of all, because the Internet is not only the Web, and no one knows what will happen next. So far, the Web is the most popular platform for working out methods and prototypes of the future Web OS, but
lay on decisive action before the technology will return to the ideology of the terminals, everyone is afraid.
By the way, in the early two thousandth attempts to organize work through the terminals within the LAN were very popular, and I myself watched one of them as part of a small IT organization. Honestly, I did not understand for a long time why all these attempts failed. From a managerial point of view, organizing the work of a company through a single server, from which only monitors and keyboards come, is very convenient and in terms of control over
human resources, and in terms of equipment costs. In reality, however, everything was not so simple: the performers constantly lacked the functionality of their terminals, and attempts to expand it were faced with unforeseen technical limitations. The situation when everything should work in theory, but in practice it goes out for itself, is familiar even now to those who are connected with the organization of labor through the Web.
In conditions when important business processes directly depend on an unclean sysadmin in an office-provider, and transferring several tens of gigabytes from Moscow to Kostroma is faster by car than via FTP, waiting for a terminal policy triumph is stupid.
Pockets, handbags
But do not prepare for it no less stupid. In any case, because in addition to the computer there is another very developed area of ​​functioning of communicative technologies, in which the terminal principle won a decisive and unconditional victory. This is a mobile connection. It was possible to ignore it for a long time, because, despite the development of protocols, the user functionality itself was rather weak. But then came the iPhone, which, perhaps, does not have any capabilities, but those that it possesses are used by people, and not just know that they hypothetically have them. Its appearance has spurred other manufacturers, and now the mobile Web is gaining momentum every month.
All four Chinese participate in this fight, in which even without them there are enough contenders for world domination. Apple launches iPhone with mobile OS X, mobile Linux is tried by Nokia and Motorola (there is also OpenMoko, but there, like in the whole Linux-world, there is an abyss of opportunities and thousandths of a percent of users), Windows Mobile is increasingly squeezing popular Symbian, Google has released its Android and they all look to the American success of the Blackberry OS.
At the same time, all the major players are trying to gain a foothold in uncharacteristic spheres, trying to cover everything that is possible - both the desktop, and the Web, and the phones. Both Apple, and Microsoft, and the Linux-community have their own operating systems for computers, for smartphones, and their own web services (for Linux, however, they are implemented quite in the spirit of geeks, but they are). Google has desktop applications, but its desktop OSes
no - maybe that's why people expect Web OS from him.
Five damned questions
What is needed to make the Web OS still appear? The first answer is obvious: the data transfer rate should increase. At the same time, no one knows how this data will be transmitted: via some new cable or via satellite, via WiFi / WiMax or completely new wireless technologies (and how to deal with the coverage areas?), Or 3G will win (in Japan, discuss 4G). Or, in general, none of the above will work, and the Internet will be transmitted by meter-wide TV frequencies
after switching to digital tv. Until it becomes clear exactly how ultra-fast communication will run to us, nothing concrete can be planned or designed.
Secondly , it is not very clear what will happen with the devices themselves. On the one hand, we see the pendulum swinging in the direction of decreasing the size of the devices. It always happens until some more productive, but size-critical technology appears. Remember how cumbersome the first CD players were compared to
micro cassette recorders? Computers are getting smaller, laptops are becoming more popular - but the triumph of nanotechnology is still not fast, and performance requirements may well hit the size of devices. Therefore, it is not very clear what to bet on - a traditional window interface with a manipulator control, where each area in the screen space plays a role, or a touchpad, in which there are completely different laws of spatial management organization? Microsoft, as we know, to large touchpads, the further the stronger, Apple, on the contrary,
does not want to go beyond the iPhone, developing the phones separately, and the computers separately (which his Jobs can’t wait for a long time is the Tablet PC).
The third question is the question of data storage. How to deal with privacy? Botnets and spyware flooded today's Internet, and without disconnecting from it, it is impossible to feel safe; the concept of Web OS also implies full confidence in the server of others. What to do with personal control over information? Copies on external media are always safer, because only you yourself are responsible for their safety and
sure about her. But if we allow external media - why do we need the web then?
Fourth: yes, the web is convenient for browsers. But we must not forget that HTTP and hypertext in general is a powerful tool, but not universal and not optimal for all tasks (why do you think WebDAV will not force out FTP?) If we have the entire operating system will be one big browser - why should it be a web browser?
And, finally, what I started this column with - and what about the money? The development and support of today's OS is already worth a lot of money - and if you add to it also a fee for communication? How about this to be if we continue to look at Google, which does not charge money from the user for working with applications?
You do not remember when we have the end of the world?
All these problems, as well as those that I forgot to mention, must be resolved before we ask ourselves the question - and when will the day finally come, and “there will be nothing, only television will be”. Obviously, the client-server concept will gradually grow into the concept of a terminal-computer, with which the whole digital history began: the pendulum will definitely swing back. But hardly Google, Microsoft, Apple or
(God forgive me) The Linux community is able today to imagine what it will look like in reality.
We can see how Microsoft is crushing its slim WinAPI pyramid, introducing the technology with the talking name .NET, and attaching consumers of its desktops, phones and game consoles to the MS Live web service. We are watching live as Apple struggles and scratches, but transforms its ridiculous .Mac web service into something more modern called Mobile Me, uniting all of their MP3 players, phones and computers into a single user space. We follow Google on the web and on mobile platforms. All of them now outline the contours of
they call it the first remote operating system - as soon as the answers to the questions are found, and the new hour X will strike.
I would like it to break through on April 1st.
Taken:
Alexey Trankov
≡ Soft | 06/23/2008 15:06
webplanet.ru/column/soft/trankov/2008/06/23/web-os.html
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/27817/
All Articles