Google finally announced it. I bet most of us were half-expecting it will come to this day, so I was not surprised by this announcement. Google announced on their blog that they were working on a new project called “Google Chrome Operating System”.
Basically, the OS is an open source (like Chromium project for Chrome), lightweight operating system which targets the netbook segment. The codes will be available by the later part of the year, and consumers will be able to use it by second half of 2010. Sounds good?
The netbook segment current represents quite an interesting dilemma. Being a stripped down version of the notebook with less power, the operating system has to be able to do the same tasks as a notebook with less brawl. At least basic tasks such as web surfing, playing music, typing emails and maybe some simple flash games. Currently, most netbooks’ operating systems are Windows XP (already obsolete), Windows Vista (soon to be obsolete when Win 7 comes by), Ubuntu / Linux and the upcoming Windows 7. Among the choices that we currently have, Ubuntu and Windows 7 seem to be the only viable choices out there as Vista will just crawl so bad and Windows XP will be losing official support very very soon in the next few years.
So, why would users use Google Chrome OS over the other OS veterans? Because its free? No. Because its open source? No. If there’s one thing Google can learn over problems which plague other OS, that is security. Google has managed to developed a secure browser with its Sandbox feature, it can do it with the OS version. They should have enough to learn to rectify and prevent security issues that could potentially plague an operating system, and they were pretty good at that with the browser so far.
Since Google made it very clear that the OS will be a web-centric OS, most of your applications will be on the web. That probably means a tighter integration with Google Apps (Gmail, Docs etc.). This will improve the performance of your netbook as the load will not be as heavy as a normal Windows or Ubuntu netbook. Perhaps we don’t even need to scramble for device drivers again as we can search and install driver through the “cloud” in Google’s enormous networks (installing drivers were often a bane when it comes to installing Windows on a fresh new PC). These will definitely make users happier.
Stay tune for more updates about Google’s OS. The architecture of this new OS will be interesting, especially on the security aspect.
By the way, if you din’t notice, Gmail has shed its beta label already =).
Microsoft, be prepared, be very prepared.
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