News: Google introduces new operating system

Back in 2005, I made some predictions about Google here on TechSoup, one of them being that Google would develop their own operating system. Well, now it's official.  Google announced the Google Chrome OS yesterday on its blog, which is an operating system based on the company's Chrome web browser.

Google Chrome OS will be an open source and lightweight operating system that will first be used in netbooks.  The OS will be available to consumers in the second half of 2010, according to Google.  Here's more of what Google has to say about their operating system:

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

Clearly Windows isn't just gonna disappear any time soon, but I like the idea of any kind of competition between a Google vs. Windows based operating system -- especially if Google's Chrome OS manages to outshine Windows in terms of users not having to deal with viruses, malware and security updates.

Very interesting.

Nice, Yann.  Technically, Google did it prior to Chrome OS with Android, an operating system for mobile platforms - but hey, here's one for the desktop.  I definitely see a trend for things to move back to server-based computing where the heavy lifting and data is stored server side.  This Chrome OS is perfect for it.  Also, the Palm Pre's Web OS uses the same design tenets - write your apps for the web and they will work on the Pre.  I'm liking the trend.

This is really going to be fun to watch.

The odds are against any significant level of success.  Remember, net computing was one of the basic goals of the dot com era, and failed miserably.  Many of the heavier-duty business applications can't run from a local server, much less from a cloud. And even when presented with superior technology, inertia and migration expenses will keep most organizations from making any serious changes.

Still, Google's plan has the greatest potential of anything I've seen in a long time.  It's free (though not for much longer) and it addresses many of the long-standing hassles associated with PC's. It is particularly inviting since it works well with netbook devices, and even more so when you see that ISP's in some areas are beginning to give away netbooks as part of a long-term broadband subscription package.

Is it really competition?  I'm not sure.  Maybe.  Or it might just be an illusion. The two markets might actually be mutually exclusive. We'll see.

But it's really, really going to be fun to watch. And with any luck, we might even benefit in some way.

-ENO   

I agree with ENO that this will be fun to watch.  The idea is pretty good, but I don't see myself ditching Windows to use this.  I found this article on the NY Times website.  The following excerpt comes from it. 

But unlike traditional operating systems like Microsoft's Windows, which run all sorts of additional software, Google’s Chrome OS will do nothing more than ensure that its Web browser runs well and fast on your machine.

It would be interesting to Virtualize your machine having your available locally installed apps running on a virtual hosted web server on your local machine accessible through the Chrome web browser running on the other OS installation.  Then you're online for everything else.

Dave, that would be a much better and more useful concept.  I would be more likely to go that route. 

Here's an article I came across today on PC World:

Can Google Release A perfectly Secure OS? Nope.

Interesting read.