Newsletter subscribe

Featured, News

Digital Signage and Google Chrome OS

Posted: July 10, 2009 at 2:00 pm   /   by   /   comments (3)

Today’s great news is that Google is planning to release it’s own OS called Google

Image source: www.google.com

Image source: www.google.com

Chrome OS and will compete against the almighty Microsoft Enterprise. We believe this is great news for the digital signage community because of the following reasons:

1. It’s Open Source and will be free. Moving towards an open source OS, will provide a significant savings to you and your clients.

2. According to Google, the Chrome O.S is fast and efficient. This is perfect for digital signage.

3. It’s lightweight – you will be able to install this on a netbook and run your digital signage application.

4. Its secure – like the Google Chrome browser, Google has designed the security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. This means spending less time patching!!!

5. Designed for the web – since most companies are now moving towards SaaS then this is a perfect match.

We look forward to testing various digital signage software on the Google Chrome and we can’t wait to get our hands dirty.

And a final note: Thanks google for making our life easier and cheaper for everyone!


Do you think there will be costs associated with using Google Chrome OS on a digital signage player?


View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

LIKE WHAT YOU'VE READ?

When you subscribe you will also join other Digital Signage readers who receive our content right in their mailbox. Good luck!

digital signage blog logo

Our Sponsors

Comments (3)

write a comment

Comment
Name E-mail Website

  • July 14, 2009 at 12:18 am Eric

    The Chrome OS’s whole raison d’etre make it bad for digital signage. The whole idea is that its a stripped down OS (at least in its initial launch). This means it’ll be lacking drivers and packages–it’ll only work on the netbooks it’ll ship in. It won’t be able to run most of the apps a real Linux distribution would be able to and it’ll have even more trouble supporting different types of hardware than a proper distribution.

    Oh, wait, I just read Bryan’s comment…

    Reply
  • July 12, 2009 at 9:27 pm DigitalSignageBlog

    Hi bryan,

    Thanks for your reply, I appreciate your comments in this discussion.

    I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there are several digital signage companies that are using the Linux OS with the firefox browser as their digital signage application/player. Having said this, I strongly believe that using the Google Chrome OS is definitely viable especially when the Chrome browser is meant to be much faster than the other browsers.

    There are also several issues that I’m aware of with the linux firefox browser and third party apps like Adobe Flash, Video players etc. So hopefully the Google Chrome OS will be able to resolve these issues.

    In terms of cost savings, it was meant to be a comparison with digital signage applications that required the Microsoft Windows OS.

    Reply
  • July 11, 2009 at 1:21 am Bryan

    Chrome OS will certainly be interesting to watch develop, especially now that Google has OEM agreements with HP, Acer, Asus and Dell. Unfortunately, the author doesn’t know very much about it beyond the PR hype.

    Chrome OS will never be a good operating system for Digital Signage Players. Allow me to explain.

    1) This is not a new OS, it’s just Linux with the Chrome browser bolted on as the primary UI. This is nothing new, several linux distros like Moblin have been doing this for a long time. (moblin.org)

    2) There’s no cost advantage. Several DS vendors already support Linux, which has a 0$ cost.

    3) Specifically geared for the netbook experience. Netopps certainly make decent Players, but definitely not netbooks. Seeing as the OS will be installed directly by the OEMs, the driver set will probably be pretty restricted.

    4) All applications run in the cloud. You cannot install an application like a Digital Signage Player that runs locally on the machine and uses the local system resources.

    Chrome OS is specifically designed to facilitate the everyday online experience: getting online fast, checking your email, watching youtube, updating your facebook, tweeting about Michael Jackson, etc, etc.

    So that’s why Chrome OS will be woefully inadequate as a Digital Signage Player operating system. On the other hand, you could probably use it to administer your network via one of the numerous web-based interfaces, provided you DS vendor supports the Chrome/Webkit browser.

    Reply