We’re happy to announce that over the next few weeks we will be rolling out the ability to upload, store and organize any type of file in Google Docs. With this change, you’ll be able to upload and access your files from any computer — all you need is an Internet connection. – Google Docs Blog
Well, obviously Google is getting ready for the world of Chrome OS. Now we get to prepare, too. I don’t really want to list all the aspects of our digital lives already live on servers, but let’s all agree that it’s more than it was ten years ago. The trend toward moving your apps and data onto the internet is real and seems to be speeding up.
It’s also interesting to consider how different approaches to handling multiple devices used by the same person is handled by different companies. At Microsoft, let’s use Exchange as their ideal. A server managed by an IT professional with lots of relatively powerless users each grabbing data from it. For Apple, let’s use the iPhone/iPod model. The Desktop/Laptop is the master copy and for the most part the iPhone/iPod copies from it. Some data can flow the other way, but the Desktop/Laptop is the senior partner here. Google’s model is that all your data is on a Google server. Your devices don’t ‘sync’ so much as ‘cache’.
These three models are pretty tightly coupled to how each firm likes to do business, too. Microsoft loves to sell software to companies, Apple likes to sell computers and devices to consumers, and Google likes to run everything themselves drop prices through the floor in order to bring in users. There are some really great things about having all your data managed by competent professionals, as would be the case with Chrome OS, but it’s hard to see how Google will be able to avoid following Microsoft’s path into making their users’ satisfaction secondary to other considerations. It’s an interesting constraint that Apple has, in that they sell almost entirely to end users. If Windows 7 isn’t compelling to the average Windows user, Microsoft can still try and sell to their real market, corporate IT. When Apple makes their users unhappy, they have nowhere else to turn (for evidence, see Apple’s market cap before Steve Jobs’s return). Sooner or later, it seems that Google’s huge reliance on advertising revenue will turn them against their users.