I feel the Web OS terminology is being used by the media to hype up the conflict between Microsoft and Google, by somehow implying that they are directly competing in the operating system market. This is, of course, ridiculous and confuses things. The are certainly competing in the Office applications space. There is a Google OS as well- the Linux based one they run on their servers. Android is an OS as well.

Stop using it- you’ll make more sense that way.

I must admit that my first reaction is to think of the OS in the traditional computer science sense.. as a platform for abstracting away hardware so as to allow simpler application development.

But then I got to really thinking about it, and realized: What is the net? It’s a series of tubes. Joking.. joking. But seriously, it’s a set of wires and routers and, well, hardware. And how are we going to make that hardware run? Well, IP (internet protocol) is the OS that allows TCP and UDP to run. TCP and UDP is the OS that allows HTTP and FTP and SMTP and NNTP to run. And HTTP is the OS that allows chat applications and calenders to run.

So in a way, the “web” OS really does abstract away hardware.. the wires themselves.. from the applications being built on it. I begrudgingly admit that you really can talk about a web OS in the purist sense. Only it isn’t just the browser. It’s the whole stack.. from the browser down through all the HTTP/TCP/IP protocols on which it sits.

But then I got to thinking: If the Web is an OS, and we’re really talking about the browser being that component of the OS, then Silicon Valley has to take a collective long, hard look in the mirror, sigh, and realize that Microsoft was right. Remember, everyone? When Microsoft was claiming that IE was an “integral part of Windows”? I think most of us, myself included, balked at such a statement. “Ridiculous!” we thought to ourselves. “Windows is an OS. IE is an application. Those are different layers of the stack! IE cannot be an integral part of Windows. Microsoft is just trying to use its monopoly power to control everything. The statement itself, about IE being an integral part, has no objective technical or logical merit!” In fact, to this day Google loves to trot out the “Microsoft is a convicted monopolist” meme, and most of what went into that conviction was their stance around integrating Windows and IE.

Well, look at what everyone is now claiming. The browser is the OS! It may not be the OS for a single computer, but it is the OS for the network itself.

And so all of Microsoft’s arguments about needing IE to be an integral part of Windows so that they could innovate.. while that logic smacked of pure b.s. to me at the time, in hindsight I think we all have to realize that if Microsoft were trying to become the Web OS, then IE *would* have to be an integral part of Windows. Not being able to integrate would stop MS’s ability to innovate, exactly as MS claimed.

Now there are those of us that still would never want a Microsoft Web. There are other considerations, such as open standards, etc. So I’m not giving MS a free pass, here.

I am simply pointing out that, at the core of their argument, Microsoft was right. Arrington has all but admitted, above, that they were right. Google, of all ironies, has also now proved them right. (I’ve even seen a number of bloggers calling for Google to work directly with chipset manufacturers, so as to be able to ship computers running Chrome, natively on the hardware itself. If that isn’t a vision of the supreme mashup of OS and web OS, into just that same sort of OS that Microsoft was trying to create by integrating Windows and IE, then I don’t know what is.)

Flame away (And no, I do not work for Microsoft.)

With the above definition of an OS it seems that the term becomes pretty meaningless. Is Office an OS, is IE an OS? I think I will stick to the traditional definition for now!

That said, I understand why people are making this connection but to me it seems one jump too many to be useful!