Google Targets Netbooks with Chrome OS

This week, Google announced that they plan to release an open source operating system to power netbooks around the middle of 2010. The new OS will be called Chrome OS and will be a light weight linux install that runs Google’s Chrome browser. While some see this as the start of the end of Microsoft, I have to disagree. People have an expectation of their home computers, and that expectation is that they can run all the same programs and do the same tasks as what they do in the office. If they bring home an office document and when they open it in Google’s Doc’s only to find out that they have a fraction of the features and functionality, the computer will be marked as a failure.

I think Michael Gartenberg has it right in his article – Chrome OS is not a threat to Windows. Only time will tell for sure, but I think for now, Microsoft doesn’t have to worry. Although, the addition of another OS is a great way to motivate Microsoft.

What I find interesting about this announcement, is that Google didn’t feel that Android could make the cut to be a desktop/netbook OS replacement. Word on the street is that Acer will be shipping netbooks later this year that include Android as their default OS and not the new Chrome OS. So why not take those efforts with Android and create an Android OS that can work on Netbooks. This would create one platform that would be easy for developers to target their applications for all devices with a single code base.

What are your thoughts on all this? It will be very interesting to see how things unfold, but I can’t see Chrome OS making any significant inroads for a while.