IDC: Google Chrome Won’t Be Enterprise Ready For A Decade
Google says Chrome’s coming in 2010, and while some analysts correctly predicted that the project would be open sourced within days last week, the IDC is now saying that Google Chrome won’t see serious enterprise adoption for 10 years.
Analyst Al Hilwa of the IDC backed up this position by saying that, while updating on the cloud might be fantastic for Chrome OS netbook users, enterprises won’t easily get on board with the concept:
“[Cloud-based updates] are not going to eliminate problems. You’ll still have occasionally an update that comes in and it will screw up something. Enterprises don’t want to see that kind of thing. I think they’re making some bets on this and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”
Furthermore, the fact that Chrome OS and the Chrome browser only run Web apps without access to downloadable local apps could be a turn-off even for netbook users:
“You wonder if netbook users are going to be okay with that, and if they will want to store everything in the cloud. Before it’s all over, there’s going to be some offline applications and then there will be some offline usage of data. They’re going to have Flash memory and people will store data locally. There’s almost no way around that.”
Based on that reason, Hilwa’s perspective is that Chrome OS will be a consumer phenomenon for five years, but it’ll be 10 years before Chrome OS can get 5% of the enterprise computing market in on the fun.
Via eWeek.
IDC Projections for Netbook Shipments
Market researcher International Data Corp (IDC) raised its projection for global shipments of netbooks, to 11.4 million units for this year and 21.5 million next year. IDC analyst Bob O’Donnell thinks that the waning economy might actually have a beneficial impact on netbook sales as “buyers in emerging markets could be enticed by netbooks’ lower price, while those in developed markets could put off upgrading their notebooks and opt for a netbook.”
[via TaipeiTimes]
