Google Takes On Microsoft Windows With New Chrome Operating System

Finally, after years of wait and speculation, Google has challenged Microsoft on its home turf, the desktop operating system. Google today announced the Chrome operating system. The operating system will initially target netbooks , most of which currently run Windows XP, which is almost 8 years old. Netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

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.

src – Google Blog

Linux based operating systems have also been growing in prominence with Linux flavors like Ubuntu also offering netbook versions. With growing presence of the Linux OS, the emergence of the Google Chrome OS and little innovation coming from the Windows camp, the next couple of years look likely to transform the OS landscape.