Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Google's Chrome: Don't bet your enterprise on it

Think that Google's much-ballyhooed new Web browser, Chrome, is aimed at helping people surf the Web? Think again.

The browser instead takes dead aim at Microsoft Office and Microsoft Exchange. If Google has its way, your enterprise will use Chrome as a platform for Web-based applications from Google. You'll abandon Office, Outlook and others, and you'll bid Microsoft goodbye.

Any surfing you do with it, from Google's point of view, is pure gravy.

Even though the world has greeted Chrome as a consumer-level browser, Google didn't conceive of it that way. In a blog post on the company's Web site, Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director, made no bones about what Google wanted to do when it designed Chrome:

"We realized that the Web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for Web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build."

To that end, Chrome is the first browser built from the ground up for a world in which the browser is an enterprise front end for Web-based applications and services such as Google Docs and Gmail.

Chrome is designed to work mostly with AJAX and Web 2.0 applications. Google built its own JavaScript virtual machine, called V8, for running JavsScript. In addition, each tab in Chrome runs as a separate browser, so that if one tab gets busy, bogs down or crashes, it won't affect the other tabs. And Chrome comes equipped with Google Gears, a kind of glue for binding Web-based applications to your hard disk.

Chrome even includes features that make it appear as if Web-based applications are really software running on your own PC. You can create desktop shortcuts to Web applications that, when double-clicked on, run in a special window that has no browser controls -- no tabs, buttons or address bar. All you see is the application itself, as if it were a desktop application.

Google hopes that once enterprises use Chrome as a platform, they will abandon desktop-based applications for Web-based ones and desert Microsoft Office and Exchange for Google Docs and Gmail.

So it's clear that with Chrome, Google is selling a proposition: Give up Microsoft for Google. But should you buy?

The answer is not yet, not by a long shot.

Chrome itself is still an early beta product. Given Google's tendency to keep its software and services in beta for years -- Gmail is still in beta, and it was launched in 2004 -- don't expect it to come out of beta for a while.

In addition, Google Docs simply isn't up to the standards of Office. It's rudimentary and lacks too many features. And the Web itself still isn't fast or reliable enough for corporations to give up Office. Beyond that, there are training, deployment, stability and management issues. And many enterprises have standardized on Internet Explorer and use ActiveX controls, which Chrome doesn't support. Abandoning all that would take an enormous amount of time and resources.

Microsoft also has a long, proven track record with enterprises. Google, as of yet, doesn't.

Robert Fort, CIO at Virgin Entertainment Group, summed up the problem: "I give Google all the credit in the world for innovative solutions, but to Microsoft's credit, they've got a lot more of an enterprise attitude."

Fort is right. So it's a good idea to give Chrome a test-drive. But as new and shiny as the browser may be, it's not yet time to bet the enterprise on it.

-September 15, 2008 (Computerworld) - http://www.computerworld.com


Saturday, September 13, 2008

Hanging stone

In a mid night... when rain drops, wind feathers... I like to be there alone... like to watch the sea from there

My desktop

Thanks for tagging me Saranya. I love black ;-) so my desktop too...
Thinking... Nothing much to tell about my desktop...
If the background is black, then we can read the file names very easily...




Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Tamil Forum in Joomla!

Now you can discuss about Joomla in Tamil on Joomla platform itself. We have created a forum there.
The link is : http://forum.joomla.org/viewforum.php?f=545

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Google's Chrome

I searched, downloaded and installed the Google's Chrome browsers even before Google publish it in the home page :-)

Seems a very cool browser...
http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ - Worth reading. This explains how this Chrome evolved...

It seems that this is going to be my default browser :-)

But of course there are lot of feature lacking compare to the Firefox now. Ofcourse we cant expect all the feature on very first day.

Also another interesting article about Chrome vs IE8 :-)
http://googlevsmicrosoft.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/microsoft-unveils-ie-beta-8-google-launches-chrome-on-2nd-september/






Monday, September 1, 2008

Gnanam's 100th issue - A Special issue on Sri Lankan Tamil Modern Literature

In Sri Lanka there is a Tamil Literature magazine called 'Gnanam'  has been published since 2000 June. This is a monthly magazine and always came on time, within the first week of each month. This month, September 2008, it touches a milestone; 100th issue.
This issue coming as a 'Special issue on Sri Lankan Tamil Modern Literature' and it contains 100 authors' more than 100 articles. All the essays in this issues are represent about Sri Lankan Modern Tamil Literature and efforts. Many Proffessors from all over then Universities in Sri Lanka have written on this.
This issue has 272 A4 pages :-) As far as I know, this is the first issue in Sri Lankan history that comes with this many pages on a context...
Last few days, I was doing proof reading for this issue... Enjoyed.. Yesterday I started to look at it around morning 6.00am and worked on it till today morning 3am... almost continuous 21 hours worked on in it without boring...
Also I am very happy to say that, I have worked for an issue that can not be forgetable in Sri Lankan Tamil Literature.
More than that, I am very proud to say that, one of my essay also included in this 'Gnanam's 100th issue - A Special issue on Sri Lankan Tamil Modern Literature' :-)