Google has officially announced its PC operating system, Chrome OS. It’s the Linux kernel, a new windowing system, and the Chrome browser. It’s targeted to run on netbooks. My first thought: Network Computer.
Update: Steven O’Grady has written one of his Q&A pieces on Chrome OS.
July 8, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Except it’s not strictly a Network Computer. It’s OS that has it’s own local storage and can run standalone. Web-connected-ness is there, but it’s not required.
I speculated several years ago that this was the direction that Google was going, especially after Gears came out.
The fear of exactly this is the reason Microsoft targeted and destroyed Netscape. Except they were 10 years early and hit the wrong company.
And it’s too late for them to stop Google.
July 8, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I wonder if it’ll have a terminal application.
July 8, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I think it depends on what access Gears gives to the underlying Linux kernel. But since it will be open sourced, I suspect someone will add it.