Friday, September 3, 2010


Google Targets Netbooks with Chrome OS

Thoughts Written by: Mike Temporale on Saturday, July 11, 2009 9:30am

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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.

Comments (3)
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Comments

3 Responses to “Google Targets Netbooks with Chrome OS”

  1. Darren Humphries on July 12th, 2009 10:59 am
    Darren Humphries

    There really is no way this is going to be a threat to Microsoft but like you said, anything that keeps MS on its toes is good.

    The idea is not bad buy is only going to appeal to a limited audience that is will to live in the cloud all the time. Google themselves has created offline versions of many of their apps, so they must be well aware of this.

    I most definitely think they should be using Android for this. It would make for a focussed effort on one OS as well as developer attention. My guess is they felt Android would be too limited down the road, perhaps because they have more planned for the OS than they are letting on.

  2. Mike on July 16th, 2009 8:42 am
    Mike

    While this might not scare Microsoft very much, it will hopefully lead to more money in general linux development :)

  3. Mike on July 16th, 2009 8:43 am
    Mike

    While this might not scare Microsoft very much, it will hopefully lead to more money in general linux development :)

    btw the “turning test” required to post comments
    here is quite hard…

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