I’d venture to say that I’m as excited about Chrome OS as anybody. 99.99 percent of my working day is currently spent in Chrome currently, and I’d be just fine with it being 100 percent if it gains a few features that Chrome OS is promising. But there’s a mildly worrisome trend occurring leading up to the launch of Google’s first desktop operating system: defections. Also interesting: what does Facebook want with these guys?
Specifically, another Chrome OS engineer has decided to leave his job at Google to go work for Facebook. This time it’s not nearly as huge of a blow as Director of Engineering Matthew Papakipos, the man who created and led the Chrome OS team for Google, leaving for Facebook. But it’s still someone else leaving the team to join Facebook, the enemy.
David Garcia, a software engineer who has been at Google for nearly four years has left the company to accept a job at Facebook, we’ve confirmed. You don’t need to look any further than this page to see how involved with Chrome OS development Garcia has been over the past several months.
That said, he wasn’t a high-level engineer on the management side of things like Papakipos was.
After Papakipos left, Google sent us a statement pointing to their “deep bench of talent” and saying they weren’t worried about missing a beat when it comes to Chrome OS development. That’s undoubtedly true, but I’m still wondering why people continue to leave such a massive project after months of work, before it has ever launched — especially since we seem to be so close to the launch.
But I’m even more curious about what Facebook is doing with these people. If you add former Android Senior Product manager (who joined Facebook in May) into this mix, you’re starting to get quite the little collection of people with various OS experience from Google. Oh, and there is what ever project Joe Hewitt is currently working on.
Maybe these people are thinking about phones, maybe not. Maybe they’re thinking about Android, maybe not. Maybe they’re thinking about a browser, maybe not. Maybe something else. But the talent continues to pour into Facebook — and much of it from Google. Despite counter-measures.
Google Chrome OS is an open source PC operating system. The operating system is based on Linux and runs only on specifically designed hardware. The OS relies heavily on cloud-based applications, and the user interface will be similar to the Google Chrome browser. As announced on July 7, 2009, the operating system is open source and targeted at netbooks. On June 15, 2011, the first Chrome OS-powered devices, known as Chromebooks, were released.
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 1 billion monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...
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