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Google filed for patents for a technology for letting downloaded software modules run directly on a processor. SAAS would benefit from that, performance swould benefit from that, but supposedly that technology is going to be embedded only in their Chrome browser. And while I don’t mind Google building a better browser (I’m a full time Chrome/Chromium user now) I’m not sure I want that browser to have a strategical technology for web apps that other can’t have. As discussed in “this week in Google“, it sounds like “ActiveX” to me. They focused on the security issue, I focus on the “browser neutrality” issue.
Web standards need to keep up with the times and I strongly support new technologies for making web apps more like desktop apps, while retaining their “cloudness”.
I’m not sure patenting is the way to encourage this.
I’m a huge Google fanboy. I’m rooting (in the sense of supporting, not installing custom firmware…) for Android to gain support and allow me to ditch the iPhone*.
I’m used to think that Google isn’t evil, at least when it comes to the future of the net, because the more we use the net (with any platform: mobile, browser, ANY browser) the more Google gets eyeballs, and the more their business thrives. I might be biased by having perused Jeff Jarvis’s “What would Google do?”, or maybe I’m just naive.
I want to see where this is going and what use (if any) will Google make of those patents.
Also I wonder how is this related to Google Native Client technology, that somehow I just discovered.
*(that I still *love*, despite its shortcomings in term of freedom. I see the rationale behind that, I understand it, but I still don’t like it)
