Apple-Orange

Sundar Pichai announced Google Drive this morning:

Today, we’re introducing Google Drive—a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff. Whether you’re working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive. You can upload and access all of your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond.

Steven Levy wrote in his book, In The Plex:

At the time, Google was about to launch a project it had been developing for more than a year, a free cloud-based storage service called GDrive. But Sundar had concluded that it was an artefact of the style of computing that Google was about to usher out the door. He went to Bradley Horowitz, the executive in charge of the project, and said, “I don’t think we need GDrive anymore”. Horowitz asked why not. “Files are so 1990”, said Pichai. “I don’t think we need files anymore”.

Horowitz was stunned. “Not need files anymore?”.

“Think about it”, said Pichai. “You just want to get information into the cloud. When people use our Google Docs, there are no more files. You just start editing in the cloud, and there’s never a file”.

I believe Levy was referring to around late 2008, when Google was about to launch Google Chrome. A lot has happened between now and then. If I recall correctly, Dropbox was launched in TechCrunch50 conference in September 2008. It was just shortly around the time after Google decided to axe GDrive. I don’t think Dropbox gained much traction until around a year after it was launched.

I personally think that file systems are going to go away. Pro users who need them will always be able to access it, but casual users won’t have to know it’s there. Not that many people understand file systems; I think it is one of the most difficult concept when someone starts learning how to use computers. I think users can work without file systems; iOS is a great proof of that. People have been using iOS for almost 5 years, and yet no one wants Finder for iOS. I do agree that the subset of things that iOS can do is still far less than the things that you can do with desktop OS, but what matters is that that subset of things are what most people use computers for. Even Google’s own OS, Chrome OS, does not have a concept of file systems.

So why launch Google Drive now? Did Pichai thought it was a mistake not to launch it back then? Pichai might have been right all along not to launch Google Drive, or maybe he’s kicking himself while watching Dropbox’s success. Who knows. What matters now is they think that they need to be in this business. If Pichai’s initial thesis that users don’t need files anymore still stands, then Google Drive is probably not being targeted to the entire Google user base.

There is one feature of Google Drive though, that I really like:

Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up.

I might as well start using Google Drive when it launches, if it’s not for this stupid thing.

A few years ago, Google introduced Chrome OS, an OS that only takes a few seconds to boot, very lean, and only has one app in it which is the browser. Last week it was announced that ASUS and Samsung are going to be among the first ones to produce this laptops. The promises sounds really good, and Google is not calling them net books, they call it chromebooks.

What Google did here is really shaking the fundamentals of consumer computing, for more than 20 years  people buy a computer that has file system, that they can install programs in, they have to update the operating system, and in some cases install anti viruses. What the chromebooks offer is a seamless system that does not need or have any of those. 

Google’s bet is quite big. They are asking you to eschew traditional computing paradigm. They’re asking you to buy a computer that can not have any other apps installed other than the browser. This is huge. The trade off? You will never ever see your computer got slow anymore. Your computer will get better in real time. You won’t have to manage your computer.

Somehow this is something that Apple tried in their iOS devices. They sandbox all your apps, you don’t see the file system, you don’t have to manage it. You don’t have to constantly check if there is a virus in your iPad. Basically it just works. This magic might as well work with the chromebooks.

For the general population out there that hasn’t got a programming job or graphic designer job, they probably be quite happy with either an iPad or a chromebook. Because all they are doing can indeed be done within the browser. But what about programming? What about editing those high quality pictures? What about video producers? Time will take care of all that. 20 years ago no one even thought that we will be photoshopping Osama bin laden pictures in our computer. Programming in your web browser will come one day.

For what it’s worth, I do think that Google is in the right direction. The first generation of chromebooks might not be perfect, but in a few years I think chromebooks will render conversation about CPU speed and hard drive space moot. No one will care how much space you have if everything you do is on the web.  And I bet if you ask your non geek friend how much RAM they have on their computer, they wouldn’t be able to answer it anyway. Those are just computer statistics that’s shown in electronic stores to confuse buyers buying decision.

By the way, it might be very subtle, but I read this as an attack to Microsoft. I’m under the impression that Google is trying to end the 20 years of windows domination. I don’t think this has anything to do with Linux or Macs.

Mashable published an article last week outlining Eric Schmidt’s leave from Google. The name of the article is Why Google Needs Its Own Steve Jobs. They wrote:

Zuckerberg turned a young company into a $50 billion empire in less than a decade. Steve Jobs steered a company on the brink of bankruptcy to new heights. Henry Ford single-handedly created the modern automotive industry.

The article also stressed how Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates are the kind of visionaries who Larry Page should become. The interesting here is that Zuckerberg is the only one who’s under 30. To be fair, Steve and Bill were under 30 too when they founded Apple and Microsoft; but being geek wasn’t cool back then.

Bonus: Thinly veiled insults on Steve Ballmer are everywhere in that article.