A Google software engineer tipped the company's hand on
how it plans to get its Chrome Operating System to work with legacy computer programs,
The Register discovered.
Google Chrome OS is the search engine's stab at a Web-based operating system for computers, powering Web applications
such as the Chrome Web browser. The platform is lightweight and is intended to
boot fast when it appears on netbooks from computer makers this fall in time
for the holiday season.
The Register sniffed around a public mailing list for
Chrome OS and found that this message from Google software engineer Gary Kačmarčík confirming a process he
calls Chromoting.
"We're adding new capabilities all the time," wrote
Kačmarčík, a former Microsoft software design engineer. "With this
functionality (unofficially named 'chromoting'), Chrome OS will not only be [a]
great platform for running modern Web apps, but will also enable you to access
legacy PC applications right within the browser."
Chromoting is akin to Remote Desktop Connection, the
Microsoft Windows service that provides users remote access to PCs anywhere in
the world, Kačmarčík said.
While the programmer did not provide more color, many in
the thread understood this feature in Chrome OS as one that will let users access
legacy applications, such as Microsoft Office, on existing Windows, Linux, or
Mac computers.
Remote access in this case allows users to access their
applications from machines other than those where the apps are residing. Citrix' GoToMyPC and others offer this functionality, allowing users to install
a client to their computer that lets them access that machine from a Web
browsing running on another computer.
Chrome OS is designed precisely to avoid the notion of
on-premise software tethered to specific hardware. So it makes complete sense
that it would have a remote access feature such as Chromoting, and that it
would allow users to access older legacy apps on their Chrome OS netbooks.
Not everyone was excited about Chromoting. Mark Lunney, An
Adobe Flash developer in the U.K. wrote on the thread June 10:
"I'm struggling to see the usefulness of this, I'm
not going to keep my Windows Laptop running to use programs such as the Adobe
suite. My experience with virtual machines also shows that they run quite
slowly - fine for cross-browser testing, but not the kind of 3D modeling and video
editing software that are the main reasons I don't think I'll be able to switch
to Chrome."
This isn't the first feature the Chrome OS team has
copped to. Chrome programmers said the OS and its Chrome Web browser sidekick
will have a complete media player that approximates the functionality of Windows
Media Player.
Meanwhile, blogger sleuths continue to piece together
Google's launch partners for Chrome OS.
When Google's Vice President for Client Products Sundar
Pichai unveiled Chrome OS last November he mentioned Acer, Asus, HP and Lenovo
as potential providers of Chrome OS netbooks.
Download Squad discovered files in the Chromium OS Git repository that point to Acer, Dell and
HP as potential partners.
The overlay-x86 bits referenced in the blog's picture
configure Chrome's hardware support during the build process.
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