Browswer-Only Google Computer
Today if you look at www.Google.com on IE, you'll see an ad for users to get Firefox. If you look at Google on Firefox, there's nothing. I think this is super ballsy. They are giving the double birds to Microsoft. Why would they do this? It is my belief that this is because Google will release in the next year a browser based PC for consumers to buy at an incredibly low price (say $100).
Google is building a world where all that is needed is the browser. All their services – Video, Search, Mail, IM, etc. – all work only in the browser, there is no concept of an application to them. This is the exact opposite of of what MS does, which is to create almost exclusively applications – Word, Excel, Outlook, etc..
Think about this:
- A $100 computer that has no hard-drive, just 500 MB of flash, a keyboard, mouse – and you can pay extra for a monitor if you want one
- OOBE: Upon bootup, which only takes a second because there's no hard-drive you get a Firefox browser which loads Google.com and a suite of applications:
- Writely for text docs
- Gmail
- Google Chat
- Google Calendar
- Google Video
- Google SocialNet (whatever this is – Orkut?)
- Management of Google's Wimax connector to get internet anywhere
This would change the world. People could get 4 of these for around there house. Anytime you have any question or comment, you boot up a browser. With HD tv sets, you could have a browser available at every TV set. I'm telling you, this would be awesome and it's completely doable and looks to be what's coming. You heard it here first.
Ever read “The first 20 million is always the hardest” by Po Bronson? It’s about a silicon valley electrical engineer who builds a cheap computer (~$100) for use by the masses.
It’s a great way to tap into the big China and India markets. Billions of people who can’t afford a $1000 dollar computer but will definitely buy a $100 dollar computer (they already buy $50 dollar cell phones, so it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch).