Google announced Google Chrome Operating System, an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks and is expected to be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.
From Google Blog:
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.
Windows and Office are two of the most popular cash cow and stronghold of Microsoft. Google Docs shown the world how a free online office suite can be easier choice to use, share and collaborate your documents. Google started looking into building operating systems for mobile phones to set-top boxes to netbooks with Google Android. And earlier this year, Google announced their own internet browser known as Google Chrome which competes directly with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari.
But what makes Google Chrome OS different is that it will be competing directly with Microsoft on the operating system market. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems I bet some people will hold on their horses and be reluctant to upgrade to Windows 7 just because of this since this essentially means that people can have more choice in choosing what operating system to run on their machine.
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