Nine months after the launch of the Google Chrome browser, the company announced a new project as its natural extension - the Google Chrome Operating System. It is an attempt to rethink what operating systems should be. The main reason behind this effort is the fact that the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So Google Chrome OS is announced as an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted to netbooks. Later this year Google will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS are expected to be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.
The vision is to develop a fast and lightweight operating system characterized by speed, simplicity and security, that will allow the user to start up and get onto the web in a few seconds. Since most of the user experience takes place on the web, the user interface is intended to be minimal to stay out of your way. The development team is going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users do not have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates.
Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and Google is 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.
Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices - from phones to set-top boxes, to netbooks. 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. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.
The developers hope to meet the requirements of the users by making computers that always run fast and do not need configuring to work with new hardware, data accessible from anywhere and instant access to email, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up.
This will not be easy to achieve, but with the help from the open source community, it may be possible to accomplish.
If Google can put out a whole OS that is as clean, fast and focused as its individual web products, the Chrome OS could be a revolution.