If you go back to 1987 Byte Magazine ran a cover about the Browser been the future OS.
Netscape and Sun both pushed this view that the OS was dead. Sun was pushing Java applets. Microsoft then launched a browser. Years of Anti Trust battle happened. Back in 1987 there was two challenges. Most people where on dial up, and there was no Ajax. I worked back then on a project to port an application from an old mainframe to the web. The issues where speed, and error checking. The user experience was not great. The challenge now with the Browser becoming the OS is that OS's are so cheap. To build a browser you need a basic OS. When you have a basic OS why not let 3rd party apps run on it? James blog.feralabs.com 2009/9/11 Andrei Herasimchuk <[email protected]> > On Sep 10, 2009, at 9:24 PM, Nasir Barday wrote: > > The distinction between OS and Browser is becoming unimportant. >> > > Except for the minor fact that without an OS you can't actually launch a > browser. > > The main difference is in performance; >> > > The main difference is that the OS actually runs the hardware, things like > your keyboard, mouse inputs, RAM usage, drawing to the computer screen, etc. > If the browser ran the hardware, then the browser would be an OS. > > if you need to do processor-intensive stuff >> (design/development, making video, laying down tracks for your latest >> album, >> tricky features in productivity apps), a native-running app is the ticket. >> > > You've made a leap here. (One which is reasonable, fwiw.) You've gone from > talking about OS versus Browser App to talking about the difference between > Browser App versus Native App. > > With strange animals like "SplashTop," a minimal OS for netbooks that runs >> Skype, Mozilla, and IM; Google's Gears and pending Chrome OS; and >> especially >> with Web 2.0's ability to save and use local data, as well as run without >> an >> Internet connection, what's the difference to the end-user? One runs >> inside >> the other, but what if the Browser ran alone? That's more of the question >> you're asking, right Kim? >> > > I'd love to know how it's possible for a browser application to even launch > without an OS. > > -Andrei > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [email protected] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
