Cloud Computing – Page 4 – vBrainstorm.com

When Apple last refreshed the Mac Mini line, it introduced a new version with Mac OS X Server preloaded that also dropped its optical drive in lieu of dual hard drives. This new configuration is quite popular according to a recent post on AppleInsider. That leads me to wonder and speculate about what could be next? I’ve speculated about a home server before…

Mac OS X Server has been incrementally growing in features and capabilities with each major release. Its market penetration and target has largely been towards Mac heavy businesses. It has packaged several new products in the last two releases to help Mac organizations reduce their dependence on Microsoft solutions – new products like iCal and Address Book server as well as a mail server, all of which are based heavily on standards which is great for interoperability across all client platforms.

But, with the introduction of the Mac Mini server, Apple has tilted the OS X Server offering more towards small businesses (who might not purchase a Mac Pro or X-Serve to run OS X Server). It also could be used for some home users — could this be the first, quiet step towards the home server for Apple? I don’t have to answer and this is purely speculation, but let me continue.

Following up on my earlier post about Chrome OS, I got to thinking. Google has GMail for email, Talk for chat, Google Docs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, and a slew of other cloud based apps. But what is missing from their portfolio and therefore missing in Chrome OS? I know we don’t know most of the details yet, but we can imagine that the system (being simple and secure) would have very little in it – maybe Chrome browser and maybe a GTalk client.

1) Music – we’re a world accustomed to iTunes and buying our music online. Where will that fit? How will it — or simply will Chrome OS handle media files?

2) Video – Sure, like music, what about video playback? YouTube is great, but there aren’t any video editing tools online as part of YouTube – you have to somehow capture and piece together your videos. I’ve never encountered an online video editing software (yet…).

3) Gaming – Sure EA is making some of their games available online and it is generally accepted for game consoles to have online portals to download games – but how will Chrome OS accomplish this? Will it shy away from this on its underpowered hardware ?

4) Photo editing – Sure, Google has Picasa, but will it be packaged with Chrome OS? It has Picasaweb, but its features are currently very limited and its space is also.

What else am I missing – I’m sure there is more…