Chromebook: Internet Gateway or Savvy Marketing?

The announcement of the Google (News - Alert) Chromebook's summer launch has raised a lot of questions in the tech media. Theories about the viability of such a device in the market place abound.

Some pundits think it's brilliant, while others wonder how it will work at all. Still others wonder who will comprise the market for such a device – business users or consumers?

In his Chromebook announcement at Google I/O in May, Google co-founder Sergey Brin (News - Alert) told the audience, “With Microsoft, and other operating system vendors, I think the complexity of managing your computer is really torturing users. It's torturing everyone in this room. It's a flawed model fundamentally. Chromebooks are a new model that doesn't put the burden of managing the computer on yourself.”

Sure, it's easy to knock Microsoft (News - Alert) Windows around; it's practically an Olympic event by now. But one has to wonder if the “new model” that Brin is advocating – that of the Internet as the platform – is really what the Chromebook is all about?

An Internet device, by its very definition, should be a device that enables the user to access the Internet, without limitations or filters. A pure browser, if you will. ChromeOS and any devices it runs on claim to be the basis of such a device, but is that claim accurate?

The skepticism comes from recalling how Google makes money. Google is not a software company. It's an advertising company. That's where the revenue comes from. So if Chromebook is to be a positive asset for Google, it needs to tightly integrate with existing Google services (which, in turn, will drive more eyeballs to the ads). That kind of tight integration makes good business sense for Google, but it's hardly an open gateway to the Internet.

What Chromebook will do is present the Internet as another walled garden, just like Apple (News - Alert) is doing with the iPad series. Content and tools are available in a wide variety on the iPad and other IOS, but only the tools and content Apple decides is appropriate. It is very likely that Chromebook will present the Internet in much the same walled way, and will become another platform provider that tortures its users.

Android already skirts this kind of walled garden approach, with apps and tools that are very Google-friendly in their implementation. Not a lot of people have complained about Android, because it's been touted as “open,” though recent events have poked holes in that bit of marketing theater. Chromebook makes no such claims about open, so Google won't even have to pretend.

One such service is Open-Xchange's upcoming Web Desktop, since users can customize Internet computers like the Chromebook to deliver any options in the world for the services they are using.

If the Chromebook presents a truly open platform that lets users tap into the web services they want rather than just the web services Google wants to provide, then this really will be a big step in the evolution of cloud computing. But we should all remember that “Internet” doesn't automatically mean “open.” And lock-in is lock-in, no matter what the platform looks like.

Rafael Laguna was co-founder of Open-Xchange Inc. and chairman of the board until he took over responsibility as CEO in January 2008. In 2001, Laguna initiated the technology partnership between Open-Xchange’s development team and SUSE Linux — today a Novell business. Most recently, Laguna was crucial to the extension of Open-Xchange’s product portfolio and formed the partnership with the world’s largest web host by known servers, 1&1 (News - Alert) Internet AG.