The internet in 5 years time

Google has teamed up with HTC to launch the HTC Dream powered by Google Android, this will be launched next week. This comes just after Google released Google Chrome beta to the public.

Now there has always been big talk that Google will eventually challenge Microsoft in terms of their operating system and with the launch of Google Chrome this is starting to become a reality.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Dream will have a large touch screen, a swivel-out keypad and a trackball for navigation. The Dream will also feature a built-in 3 mega pixel camera, a music player and purpose-built access to Google services like Gmail, Maps, and Search.

In the late '90s Microsoft was the dominant operating system and the browser wars were just starting. So been the dominant player and already controlling the operating system on the greater majority of PCs they made Internet Explorer the default browser on all the Windows PCs. So now users would have to go and specifically find and download Netscape if they wanted a different option...

Microsoft was eventually taken to court and fined millions and millions of dollars for this anti-competitive behaviour.

When Google first started it was just a search engine and relied on operating systems and browsers to bring it to the masses. But now they have launched their own web browser and mobile operating system, will Android be adapted to run a PC? We will wait and see.

In the mean time I see history repeating itself as it always does - Google will be operating on all mobile devices (PC and mobile) and having the default search engine as Google, email as GMAIL, instant messenger as GTALK etc etc. Google how ever has already learnt a bit from looking back at history and with Google Chrome you get to select your default browser...

Will they get fined like Microsoft did? I think it depends on how anti-competitive it becomes, if they keep making APIs like they currently do and allow some greater flexibility then maybe it will be ok.

The one factor that is now also becoming a reality is Facebook with many people saying that they will also become the operating system of the future. Now many people may look at Facebook now and not think its possible, but it definitely is not a grasp at thin air.

In 2 years time - Open source operating systems like Linux could be the norm (depending on how secure they are from viruses as the hacking community is still focused on creating viruses for Microsoft PCs and not open source) with Firefox or Chrome as your browser, MS Office as your Word and Spreadsheet software and Facebook your main focus point when going online with all websites and software interacting with it. The internet in 5 years time is too much to try predict right now but its defintely going to have a merging of all devices, and expect internet on your TV very soon.