HTML 5: Another reason netbooks are the more important to mobile operators than cell phones.
Article in PC world talks about HTML 5 in the context of the Google announcements today (http://tinyurl.com/mk8krj)
HTML5 is a standard that is still being developed and is likely to remain so for several years. Its focus on running applications within the browser is an important driver of interest in cloud computing, where applications live somewhere off on the Internet and are delivered by the browser.
The focus of future browsers will shift from “going places” to “doing things.” This will be a boon to free operating systems, which will increasingly be able to hide themselves under the browser user interface. While Windows and Mac OSX won’t go away overnight, the pressure on them will be to innovate beyond the browser, perhaps through a common set of extensions for HTML5 applications to use.
The key takeaway is that the operating system is in the cloud, in addition to office applications and everything else. Mobile operators are the most important — and to date largely unsung — players here; it is they that have the most to gain (or lose, if they succeed at screwing it up).
You’ve heard it before: remember Sun’s campaign that the “Network is the Computer. ” Back in 1995 Larry Ellison was predicting that Network Computers would replace Personal Computers as the computing equipment of choice. And Netscape said for years that the browser was the “next OS.”
The difference now is that a viable broadband mobile infrastructure is in place. Network technologies have matured, not from a technological standpoint (they’ve been mature from some time), but from a social standpoint. The network is now, finally, ready to realize it’s place as the computer because people’s lives are integrated with it more deeply than even Larry could dream more than a decade ago.
Email: chris(at)chrishoover(dot)org