It won’t work.

Ok, that was harsh, let me explain myself.

We all know, or think, that cloud computing is “the way of the future“, and that a lot of what’s today considered “desktop applications” will be inside the cloud in the near future. But we can also see that data storage & processing is every day cheaper and physically smaller.

So, if storage and processing is getting cheaper each day, why would anyone like to have all it’s photos, docs, and stuff, in Google’s cloud (or anyone’s else  for that matter) and not in it’s pocket?

What first comes to my mind is availability, but that’s not a great answer. I’ve been carrying a cell phone that can store much of my digital life for a while now, and, if the trend continues, in a couple years I’ll have a device capable of storing many times my life on a gadget the size of a wristwatch. So, if it’s always with me, and as my cell phone, it can always be online… why would I prefer “the Cloud”? I don’t see a clear answer.

Well, I do see one:  So they can mine my data, know what I do, and profit from it. Like GMail and its “ads”, but in a much larger scale. I’m not so sure people will fall for it.

Also there is another problem: An OS is not “a thing you use to surf the web, read your emails, listen to music and watch videos”. I think that’s a myth Microsoft has made all people believe to keep their dominance in the desktop arena. When I was younger I was involved in an open source OS called Syllable, and even if my participation was very small and sporadic, I really liked it and spent many hours using it, toying with it and hoping it’ll defeat Linux (I have to confess I’m a linux anti-fan). It had all the things I mentioned previously, but you have probably not even heard about it until today. That’s because when you start using an OS that is subpar in features or capabilities, you start missing those in a blink.

To finish this futurology session I’ll say that, the way I see it, the iPhone is much near of becoming “the future of desktop computing”, than Google and it’s Chrome OS are. At least for now. There is always time for improvement, and Googlers are not stupid by any means.

Notice: This article talks about future events, and it’s ideas and opinions might not correlate to reality in the long term.