Apple and Microsoft do sometimes agree

In the computing world, Apple and Microsoft are often considered opposites. Microsoft makes software; Apple makes hardware (primarily). Microsoft sells to enterprises; Apple sells to consumers. Microsoft products are ugly and buggy; Apple products are beautiful and "it just works".

Yet they do agree on one thing: The center of the computing world.

Both Apple and Microsoft have built their empires on local, personal-size computing devices. (I would say "PCs" but then the Apple fans would shout "MacBooks are not PCs!" and we don't need that discussion here.)

Microsoft's strategy has been to enable PC users, both individual and corporate. It supplies the operating system and application programs. It supplies software for coordinating teams of computer users (ActiveDirectory, Exchange, Outlook, etc). It supplies office software (word processor, spreadsheet), development tools (Visual Studio, among others), and games. At the center of the strategy is the assumption that the PC will be a computing engine.

Apple's strategy has also been to enable users of Apple products. It designs computing products such as the MacBook, the iMac, the iPad, and the iPhone. Like Microsoft, the center of its strategy is the assumption that these devices will be computing engines.

In contrast, Google and Amazon.com take a different approach. They offer computing services in the cloud. For them, the PCs and tablets and phones are not centers of computing; they are sophisticated input-output devices that feed the computing centers.

That Microsoft's and Apple's strategies revolve around the PC is not an accident. They were born in the microcomputing revolution of the 1970s, and in those days there was no cloud, no web, no internet. (Okay, technically there *was* an internet, but it was limited to a very small number of users.)

Google and Amazon were built in the internet age, and their business strategies reflect that fact. Google provides advertising, search technology, and cloud computing. Amazon.com started by selling books (on the web) and has moved on to selling everything (still on the web) and cloud computing (its AWS offerings).

Google's approach to computing allows it to build Chromebooks, light-powered laptops that have just enough operating system to run the Chrome browser. Everything Google offers is on the web, accessible with merely a browser.

Microsoft's PC-centric view makes it difficult to build a Windows version of a Chromebook. While Google can create Chrome OS as a derivative of Linux, Microsoft is stuck with Windows. Creating a light version of Windows is not so easy -- Windows was designed as a complete entity, not as a partitioned, shrinkable thing. Thus, a Windows Cloudbook must run Windows and be a center of computing, which is quite different from a Chromebook.

Yet Microsoft is moving to cloud computing. It has built an impressive array of services under the Azure name.

Apple's progress towards cloud computing is less obvious. It offers storage services called iCloud, but their true cloud nature is undetermined. iCloud may truly be based on cloud technology, or it may simply be a lot of servers. Apple must be using data centers to support Siri, but again, those servers may be cloud-based or may simply be servers in a data center. Apple has not been transparent in this.

Notably, Microsoft sells developer tools for its cloud-based services and Apple does not. One cannot, using Apple's tools, build and deploy a cloud-based app into Apple's cloud infrastructure. Apple remains wedded to the PC (okay, MacBook, iMac, iPad, and iPhone) as the center of computing. One can build apps for Mac OS X and iOS that use other vendors' cloud infrastructures, just not Apple's.

For now, Microsoft and Apple agree on the center of the computing world. For both of them, it is the local PC (running Windows, Mac OS X, or iOS). But that agreement will not last, as Microsoft moves to the cloud and Apple remains on the PC.

An imaginary Windows version of the Chromebook

Acer and HP have cloudbooks - laptop computers outfitted with Windows and a browser - but they are not really the equivalent of a Chromebook.

A Chromebook is a lightweight laptop computer (in both physical weight and computing power) equipped with a browser and just enough of an operating system to run the browser. (And some configuration screens. And the ssh program.) As such, they have minimal administrative overhead.

Cloudbooks - the Acer and HP versions - are lightweight laptops equipped with the full Windows operating system. Since they have the entire Windows operating system, they have the entire Windows administrative "load".

Chromebooks have been selling well (possibly due to their low prices). Cloudbooks have been selling... well, I don't know. There are only a few models from Acer and a few models from HP; much fewer than the plethora of Chromebooks from numerous manufacturers. My guess is that they are selling in only modest quantities.

Would a true "Windows Chromebook" sell? Possibly. Let's imagine one.

It would have to use a different configuration than the current cloudbooks. It would have to be a lightweight laptop with just enough of an operating system to run the browser. A Windows cloudbook would need a browser (let's pick the new Edge browser) and stripped-down version of Windows that is just enough to run it.

I suspect that the components of Windows are cross-dependent and one cannot easily build a stripped-down version. Creating such a version of Windows would require the re-engineering of Windows. But since this is an imaginary device, let's imagine a smaller, simpler version of Windows.

This Windows cloudbook would have to match the price of the Chromebooks. That should be possible for hardware; the licensing fees for Windows may push the price upwards.

Instead of locally-installed software, everything would run in the browser. To compete with Google Docs, our cloudbook would have Microsoft Office 365.

But then: Who would buy it?

I can see five possible markets: enterprises, individual professionals, home users, students, and developers.

Enterprises could purchase cloudbooks and issue them to employees. This would reduce the expenditures for PC equipment but might require different licenses for professional software. Typical office jobs that require Word and Excel could shift to the web-based versions of those products. Custom software may have to run in virtual desktops accessed through the company's intranet. Such a configuration may make it easier for a more mobile workforce, as applications would run from servers and data would be stored on servers, not local PCs.

Individual professionals might prefer a cloudbook to a full Windows laptop. Then again, they might not. (I suspect most independent professionals using Windows are using laptops and not desktops.) I'm not sure what value the professional receives by switching from laptop to cloudbook. (Except, maybe, a lighter and less expensive laptop.)

Home users with computers will probably keep using them, and purchase a cloudbook only when they need it. (Such as when their old computer dies.)

Students could use cloudbooks as easily as the use Chromebooks.

Developers might use cloudbooks, but for them they would need tools available in their browser. Microsoft has development tools that run in the browser, and so do other companies.

But for any of these users, I see them using a Chromebook just as easily as using a Windows cloudbook. Microsoft Office 365 runs in the Chrome and Firefox browsers on Mac OSX and on Linux. (There are apps for iOS and Android, although limited in capabilities.)

There is no advantage to using a Windows cloudbook  -- even our imaginary cloudbook -- over a Chromebook.

Perhaps Microsoft is working on such an advantage.

Their Windows RT operating system was an attempt at a reduced-complexity configuration suitable for running a tablet (the ill-fated Surface RT). But Microsoft departed from our imagined configuration in a number of ways. The Surface RT:

- was released before Office 365 was available
- used special versions of Word and Excel
- had a complex version of Windows, reduced in size but still requiring administration

People recognized the Surface RT for what it was: a low-powered device that could run Word and Excel and little else. It had a browser, and it had the ability to run apps from the Microsoft store, but the store was lacking. And while limited in use, it still required administration.

A revised cloudbook may get a warmer reception than the Surface RT. But it needs to focus on the browser, not locally-installed apps. It has to have a simpler version of Windows. And it has to have something special to appeal to at least one of the groups above -- probably the enterprise group.

If we see a Windows cloudbook, look for that special something. That extra feature will make cloudbooks successful.

Tablets for consumption, cloudbooks for creation

Tablets and cloudbooks are mobile devices of the mobile/cloud computing world.

Tablets are small, flat, keyboardless devices with a touchscreen, processor, storage, and an internet connection. The Apple iPad is possibly the most well-known tablet. The Microsoft Surface is possibly the second most well-known. Other manufacturers offer tablets with Google's Android.

Cloudbooks are light, thin laptops. They contain a screen (possibly a touchscreen, but touch isn't a requirement), processor, storage, and internet connection, and the one thing that separates them from tablets: a keyboard. They look and feel like laptop computers, yet they are not laptops in the usual sense. They have a low-end processor and a custom operating system designed to do one thing: run a browser. The most well-known cloudbook computers are Google's Chromebooks.

I'm using the term "cloudbook" here to refer to the generic lightweight, low-powered, single-purpose laptop computer. A simple search shows that the phrase "cloudbook" (or a variation on capitalization) has been used for specific products, including an x86 laptop, a brand of e-books, a cloud services broker, and even an accounting system! Acer uses the name "cloudbook" for its, um, cloudbook devices.

Tablets and cloudbooks serve two different purposes. Tablets are designed for the consumption of data and cloudbooks are designed for the creation of data.

Tablets allow for the installation of apps, and there are apps for all sorts of things. Apps to play games. Apps to play music. Apps to chat with friends. Apps for e-mail (generally effective for reading e-mail and writing brief responses). Apps for Twitter. Apps for navigation.

Cloudbooks allow for the installation of apps too, although it is the browser that allows for apps and not the underlying operating system. On a Chromebook, it is Chrome that manages the apps. Google confuses the issue by listing web-based applications such as its Docs word processor and Sheets spreadsheet as "apps". The separation of web-based apps and browser-based apps is made more complex by Google's creation of duplicate apps for each environment to support off-line work. For off-line work, you must have a local (browser-based) app.

The apps for cloudbooks are oriented toward the composition of data: word processor, spreadsheet, editing photographs, and more.

I must point out that these differences are in orientation and not complete capabilities. One can consume data on a cloudbook. One can, with the appropriate tools and effort, create on a tablet. The two types of devices are not exclusive. In my view it is easier to consume on a tablet and easier to create on a cloudbook.

Tablets are already popular. I expect that cloudbooks will be popular with people who need to create and manage data. Two groups I expect to use cloudbooks are developers and system administrators. Cloudbooks are a convenient size for portability and capable enough to connect to cloud-based development services such as Cloud9, Codeanywhere, Cloud IDE, or Sourcekit.