GooOS, the Google Operating System (kottke.org…)
Great post about what Google is up to by Rich Skrenta. He argues that Google is building a huge computer with a custom operating system that everyone on earth can have an account on. His last few paragraphs are so much more perceptive than anything that’s been written about Google by anyone; Skrenta nails the company exactly:
Google is a company that has built a single very large, custom computer. It’s running their own cluster operating system. They make their big computer even bigger and faster each month, while lowering the cost of CPU cycles. It’s looking more like a general purpose platform than a cluster optimized for a single application.
While competitors are targeting the individual applications Google has deployed, Google is building a massive, general purpose computing platform for web-scale programming.
This computer is running the world’s top search engine, a social networking service, a shopping price comparison engine, a new email service, and a local search/yellow pages engine. What will they do next with the world’s biggest computer and most advanced operating system?
Okay, so on a purely “Oooh, Google is shiny and pretty” level, I am a huge fan. I have very little concept of the actual mechanics of keeping this engine running daily, though. I followed these links and read around for a bit.
What are your thoughts on Google? I mean, it seems like when a company gets this big and this good at what it is doing…and looks like it might actually make money doing it…the whole geek world suddenly turns against them shaking their fists.
Is there any part of you that is concerned/annoyed at Google’s success?
I think on some level even the most hardcore Google fans are apprehensive about the Future With Google. But, keep in mind that one of their corporate mantras is ‘Don’t Be Evil’ — the method of their IPO (Dutch auction) is more than a nod to at least trying to be a good corporate citizen, despite how much it irked The Street, and then there’s the whole thing with the founders retaining 51% of the stock so that control wouldn’t fall into the hands of the Corporate Evildoers (the selfsame Street, generally).
I think they’ll continue to do well as long as they stick to their principles. People, as they’ve been conditioned to do, will be wary until their trust is duly earned rather than coerced (Microsoft anyone?). Actions speak louder than any We-Reserve-the-Right-to-Crap-on-You-Without-Notice privacy policy.