It is a highly credible point of view that the smartphone OS wars will look irrelevant in a couple of years’ time, and high end mobile devices will be dominated by the browser. Always-on connectivity, data and apps in the cloud, the browser taking on almost all the functions of the operating system, with just a cutdown OS to keep things ticking along ‘ these are the hallmarks of the ubiquitous mobile internet vision.
The obvious companies seeking to drive and dominate this trend are Google and Adobe. The former with Chrome OS and its faith that pure web technologies like HTML5 can create a rich experience comparable to that of a native platform; the latter turning its Flash system into a platform that performs the functions of the OS, browser and rich media environment. But we shouldn’t forget a technology that came long before Chrome OS, and which is increasingly mobile in focus ‘ Glide OS from TransMedia, now in its fourth release and moving beyond the web desktop.
Version 4.0 of Glide OS is an ambitious step-up from the current release, and ticks all the modern web boxes ‘ cross-device, cross-platform, browser agnostic, and focused on the latest development technologies, from HTML5 to cloud collaboration systems. It is also more advanced in targeting the mobile world than PC rivals like ajaxWindows.
Like Adobe, Glide OS runs as a plug-in to any browser, and is available as a free download, providing collaboration, productivity and syncing apps plus 15Gb of free online storage. However, unlike Chrome OS, Glide OS users can keep data and apps locally too, while the Google system forces people to rely entirely on the cloud ‘ which some may be nervous of doing at this early stage, partly because many people’s behavior patterns have not caught up with the pure Google vision, and partly because of high profile failures of the cloud model, such as the recent Microsoft/T-Mobile/Sidekickk crash and now a similar event at Sprint for the Palm webOs remote services.
Transmedia says the new version of Glide OS supports over 100 mobile devices and converts file formats on the fly for them, automatically converting files when customers are exchanging files created with different versions of an app, or even between different media player formats. The technology, which is Flash-based, has been highly rated for its security features. It may not have any of the publicity machine of Chrome OS, but it shouldn’t be discounted, especially as a possible focus of interest for more powerful Google rivals.