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74% of the world, Google's Chrome OS is not for you

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app103:
Google made a huge splash when it announced its plans for the Chrome operating system, a web-centric OS where essentially everything is run through a web browser. One great promise of Google’s Chrome OS is the arrival of low-cost, lightweight hardware, since most of the storage and other data handling is done in the cloud. Perhaps that 100-dollar computer will finally become a reality.

But there is a problem. A rather big one. The strength of the Chrome OS, that it makes maximum use of online resources, also limits its potential adoption. To have any real use of the OS you need a decent Internet connection, and that has some significant implications we need to look at.

5 billion without Internet access

Before we even discuss broadband, let us first get one piece of statistic out in the open: 74% of the world population doesn’t have Internet access. At all.

In other words, 5 billion of the world’s 6.8 billion people will have little use for Google’s Chrome OS because they don’t have Internet access.
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http://royal.pingdom.com/2009/12/01/74-of-the-world-googles-chrome-os-is-not-for-you/

Eóin:
To me the idea of a PC which is only properly functional while I have net access is terrible. Even though I have broadband at home and in rented accommodation plus I have a pretty decent mobile web modem courtesy of my phone I still consider a dependence on the internet too big a liability.

nite_monkey:
I also have to agree with Eoin. I have cable internet at home, but there is times when it goes down, and can sometimes take a while to come back up. I would be without a usable computer then.

steeladept:
To me the idea of a PC which is only properly functional while I have net access is terrible. Even though I have broadband at home and in rented accommodation plus I have a pretty decent mobile web modem courtesy of my phone I still consider a dependence on the internet too big a liability.
-Eóin (December 01, 2009, 01:05 PM)
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I echo this statement - it is the basis of my resistance to cloud computing, including such "niceties" as C2, Google Docs, etc.  If I can't access them when I need them (and that is quite frequently), then it is useless to me - even at the wonderful cost of free (which many are not).

mwb1100:
I wonder how many of the 5 billion without Internet access have no access to a computer, in which case an OS - free or not and  needing connectivity or not - is of little interest?

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