News Chrome OS gets Windows app support

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/06/14/chrome-gets-windows-app-support/1

 

People use Chrome OS?

 

I don't really know how to react to this. On one hand, yes it should drive down the price for new netbooks but I can't see Microsoft sitting too kindly to this supposed love-in. I'm sure there is some kind of user-license issue even for virtualisation in the "Cloud". I would agree with the last question though "do you think that anyone who has a need to run Windows applications on their netbooks will just buy one that runs Windows in the first place?" As long as the price is low they will still keep buying the Windows version since they will using windows heavy apps.

 

I've been using Hexxeh's build of Chrome OS on my Dell mini9 and am impressed with it so far. The netbook literally only gets used for short periods of Internet access (just to have a quick browse, usually by the missus) so it's great for that.

I've been having some wifi trouble with it this last week though so have gone back to using Ubuntu 10.04 UNR for now but as soon as Chrome OS is released I will be using it as my only OS on the netbook.

I do agree with what's been said though, I think that if I needed to use a netbook for office work then I'd want one that runs Windows well in the first place (the mini9 like many other single core Atom netbooks runs much better on Linux OS's like Ubuntu and Chrome OS).

 

I see the advantage of this is the effectively chroot of any WinApps that are run.
If a process crashes it won't bring down your whole netbook.
The downside is that you won't get native performance for those apps.

 

no native performance, on a netbook?

 

I think this could end up being a big hit with enthusiasts like us, especially the remote desktop idea. more and more of us are choosing to have a powerful desktop at home for gaming and such, and a small ultra-portable computer for mobile Internet and simple tasks. I think most people would agree that there is always something you want to do while out and about that your netbook just isn't equipped to do. Personally, I frequently find myself at a buddies house wanting to stream some movies i have on my home computer, but didn't move to my netbook. Many of us choose to get a lower-capacity SSD over a HDD so storage becomes and issue, and nobody wants to haul a external drive with them all the time. So an improved relationship between your mobile computer and your home system would be nice for many reasons.

though I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Google supprising us all with an approach no one thought of. We wont know how this works until Google reveals it completely.

 

Being able to remotely access a much more powerful system is a godsend.

It's a good thing if I can run a few intensive apps, download what I need to, process, and compile it all on a much more powerful system hundreds of miles away in a fraction of the time. Even as it stands, I'll remotely control my media server to do a lot of the tasks that my laptop takes far too long for.