Google is now one step closer to sticking a knife into Microsoft and twisting it. Google has quietly released Native Client, and moved an incremental step closer to to the promise of a web operating system.
Simply put Native Client will run code a PC can understand without having to translate everything, ergo, faster and better browser based software. I can remember when Netscape and it’s clunky Java implementation scared the pants off of Bill in 1995 and forced Microsoft to push out it’s own scripting language- Active X. I am sure that Native Client will be a much friendlier version of Active X.
Now, if you combine Chrome, Google’s new browser with Gears, which can store web app data off line and synchronize later, AND add in Native Client I think you have something that is approaching a Web OS.
Take that Bill.
I spent some time reading the paper they published about the Native Client, and I think they might be on to something! I was pretty skeptical (I mean, x86 code is notoriously dangerous to execute), but it looks like they’ve come a very long way towards identifying the safe subset of code and only allowing that code to run.