Hasta La Gadget!

At today’s Mobilebeat 2009 Conference, Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra said that web app development is the future of successful mobile platforms. Sounds a lot like Chrome OS on smartphones.

Gundotra reiterated a lot of what we already know. Google believes the future of the computers lies in the browser, with apps coded according to web standards and data existing in the cloud. However, what stood out as interesting was that Gundotra, who isn’t directly part of the Android team, referenced all this in the same breath as the rapid evolution of mobile browsers and mobile data plans. While he never explicitly referenced Chrome OS, it seemed evident that the upcoming, browser-based platform was in his head as he spoke.

After all, part of the point of Chrome OS is that it scales—from netbooks to desktops, so why not down to phones? And if the future is in web apps, why wouldn’t Google move its web app OS down to phones once the ubiquitous connectivity is there? In Google’s worldview, native apps are already just about archaic—just a necessary evil in Android’s case.

He also spoke on how browsers and web standards are advancing so quick, that web apps will be more powerful than people realize: “Steve Jobs had it right when he said build for the web. But timing was an issue.” And it looks like for Google, the time is now. [Chrome OS]