Web OS: the future of one illusion

    The Internet is more profitable than the real world. And not only in terms of mental 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 at the mall. Storing data on 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 most importantly - on the Internet, the further you go, the more it becomes possible not to pay for services, but instead just watch ads. Even reacting to it is not necessary.

    The main service in the digital world has been and remains software products - this is why the modern computer from a tool for scientists has turned into a household appliance. Since the beginning of the eighties, software has shaped the computer market: the cheaper it was, the more understandable and the more functional it was, the better it sold the computer to which it was attached. People bought a computer, and then bought, bought and bought software - accessories and services always bring more profits in any mass market than the product itself, and it always has been.

    Sweet Vinegar Web 2.0

    And it would be - until April 1, 2004. On this sunny day, Google launched its GMail email service. Not everyone understood what happened right away - many simply decided that Google released a toy for geeks, a regular email service, of which there were already a lot - only using Ajax, and ... - if there weren’t this “and”, they would be right . Soon GMail was in no way inferior to ordinary email clients, and dozens of clones and taut 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 entailed analogues 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, they are free applications.

    What I will say now may seem funny, but the first step towards this was taken by none other than Microsoft. In pursuit of the lost web browser market, they tried to defeat Netscape, and chose a win-win tactic: they released the most full-featured IE4 browser at that time and began to distribute it for free. And it is unlikely that those who made this tactical decision anticipated its strategic consequences - having conquered 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, although with caveats and limitations, considered the HTML document as an object model. Very quickly Mozilla Firefox and Opera rushed after him, and then exotic
    Safari pulled himself up . By 2004, all of them were full-fledged platforms for creating applications that are downloaded from the Internet, store data on a server, and - which Microsoft could not have foreseen in 1998 - were independent of the operating system (the full functionality of IE4 was very platform-dependent as from client and server side).

    For a long time, web applications only concerned with solving some specific tasks, but soon the Internet became faster and cheaper, and browsers became more powerful, and after 2004 the question arose: if you can do almost anything in a browser, then why do you need an operating system in general? So far this is not an extra layer between the browser and the web application - but for how long?

    There will be nothing, only television

    As practice shows, both manufacturers and consumers of software are morally ready to switch to the Internet OS. The Internet now occupies much more space in the life of an ordinary user than 5-6 years ago, and it is not uncommon for today's computer beginners (and people of all ages to become them) to hear questions - will their Mail.ru account remain if they buy a new one hardware, or why on a computer you can restore a file from the Recycle Bin, but you can’t comment on a forum. The farther, 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 a fear of being unprepared for a decisive start, when the technical and psychological state of the computer market will allow launching an open swimming project codenamed Web OS. Manufacturers of web applications, primarily Google, have no less reasons - who, if not they, have a ready-made product base now? The battle for supremacy in the
    still non-existent world of high-speed Internet has been unfolded with might and main, however no one has proposed a coherent strategy, so the winner is still a serious question.
    One head is good, but not yet

    At the moment, we have the three most popular user OSs and one major manufacturer of web software. They all take 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 practicing methods and prototypes of the future Web OS, but
    everyone is afraid of taking decisive action before the technologies allow us to return to the ideology of terminals.

    By the way, in the early 2000s, attempts to organize work through terminals within the LAN were very popular, and I myself watched one of them in a small IT organization. Honestly, for a long time I did not understand why all these attempts failed. From a managerial point of view, organizing the company’s work through a single server, from which only monitors and keyboards go, is very convenient both in terms of controlling
    labor resources and in terms of equipment costs. In reality, however, everything turned out to be 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 in theory everything should work, but in practice it turns out to be more expensive, is familiar now to those who are connected with the organization of labor through the Web.

    In conditions when important business processes directly depend on the dirty system administrator in the office-provider, and transferring several tens of gigabytes from Moscow to Kostroma is faster by car than via FTP, waiting for any triumph of terminal policies is silly.

    Pockets, Handbags

    But not to prepare for it is no less stupid. In any case, because besides the computer there is another very developed area of ​​the functioning of communicative technologies, in which the terminal principle won a decisive and unconditional victory. This is mobile communications. 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, maybe, doesn’t have any capabilities, but people use it, and don’t just know that they have them hypothetically. His appearance spurred the remaining manufacturers, and now the mobile Web is gaining momentum every month.

    All four of China are zealously participating in this battle, in which there are enough pretenders to world domination even without them. Apple launches iPhone with mobile OS X, Nokia and Motorola try mobile Linux (there is also OpenMoko, but there, as in the entire Linux world, there is an abyss of opportunities and thousandths of a percent of users), Windows Mobile is increasingly crowding the popular Symbian, Google has released its Android and they all look to the American success of Blackberry OS.

    At the same time, all major players are trying to gain a foothold in areas unusual for them, trying to cover everything that is possible - and desktop, and the Web, and phones. Both Apple, Microsoft, and the Linux community have their own operating systems for computers, for smartphones, and their own web services (Linux, however, they are implemented in a completely geeky way, but they are). Google has desktop applications, but
    there is no desktop OS - perhaps that is why people expect Web OS from him.

    Five damn questions

    What does it take for Web OS to come up? First answerobvious: the data transfer rate should increase. At the same time, no one knows how this data will be transmitted: through some new cable or via satellite, via WiFi / WiMax or completely new wireless technologies (and what then with coverage areas?), Or will 3G defeat (in Japan already seriously discuss 4G). Or, in general, none of the above will work, and the Internet will be transmitted over meter-long frequencies
    after switching to digital TV. Until it becomes clear exactly how the ultra-high-speed communication will run to us, nothing concrete can be planned or designed.

    Secondlyuntil it’s very clear what will happen to the devices themselves. On the one hand, we see how the pendulum swings in the direction of reducing the size of the devices. This always happens until some more productive, but size-critical technology appears. Remember how bulky the first CD players were compared to
    microcassette recorders? Computers are getting smaller, laptops are becoming more popular - but the triumph of nanotechnology is still not quick, and performance requirements may well hit the size of the devices. Therefore, it’s not very clear what to bet on - on the traditional window interface with manipulator control, where each area in the screen space plays a role, or on the touchpad, in which completely different laws of spatial control organization? Microsoft, as we know, gravitates toward large touchpads the farther away, Apple, on the contrary,
    does not strive to go beyond the iPhone, developing phones separately, and computers separately (which is why his fans will not wait for Jobs for a long time, this is Tablet PC) .
    Third question- the issue of data storage. What to do with privacy? Botnets and spyware have flooded today's Internet, and without disconnecting from it, it is impossible to feel safe; the concept of Web OS implies complete trust in a foreign server. What to do with personal control over information? Copies on external media are always more reliable, because only you yourself are responsible for their safety and are
    confident in it. But if we allow external media - then why do we need the web?

    Fourth: yes, the Web is browser-friendly. But do not forget that HTTP and hypertext in general are a powerful tool, but not universal and not optimal for all tasks (why do you think WebDAV will not supersede FTP in any way?) If we have an entire operating system with one big browser - why is it should it be a web browser?

    And finally, with what I started this column - what about money? The development and support of today's operating systems is already worth a lot of money - and if you add to them also the communication fee? What should we do if we continue to look at Google, which does not take money from the user for working with applications?
    Do you 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, finally, the day will come, and "there will be nothing, there will be only television." Obviously, the client-server concept will gradually grow into a terminal-computer concept, with which all this digital history began: the pendulum will swing back. But hardly Google, Microsoft, Apple or
    (sorry, my lord) The Linux community today is able to imagine how it will actually look.

    We see Microsoft breaking its slender WinAPI pyramid by introducing a technology called the .NET, and linking consumers of its desktops, phones and game consoles to the MS Live web service. We are watching Apple live with difficulty and creak, but transforming its ridiculous .Mac web service into something more modern called Mobile Me, combining all their MP3 players, phones and computers into a single user space. We follow Google’s innovations on the web and on mobile platforms. All of them now outline the contours of what
    they will call the first remotely working operating system - as soon as answers to questions are found, and the new hour X will strike.

    I would like him to break through on April 1st.

    Taken:
    Alexey Trankov
    ≡ Software | 06/23/2008 15:06
    webplanet.ru/column/soft/trankov/2008/06/23/web-os.html

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