The Google-Microsoft rivalry continues and this time Google has finally decided to challenge the monoply of Microsoft in the stream of Operating Systems. For the last decade or so, Microsoft has undoubtedly ruled the world of operating systems. Nine months after the successful release of Google Chrome web browser, Google officially announced a couple of days ago that it will be working on a new project - The Google Chrome Operating System and according to them its a natural extension of Google Chrome.
Like Google chrome, the Google Chrome OS is an open source software and it is initially 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“, says Google.
The main features of Google Chrome OS are speed, security and simplicity and the fact that it will be very lightweight makes me more curious about it. The user interface is minimal and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And according to the Google guys, as they did for the Google Chrome browser, they 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.
The main focus of Google seems to be the Web. “For application developers, the Web is the platform,” Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director, said in the Google Chrome OS blog announcement Tuesday. That gives Google some real advantages. Everybody already is using the Web, including everybody using Windows. Adding Web applications to your life is a much more gradual shift than suddenly cutting over from Windows to Linux or Mac OS X. Aside from Google’s own Web applications, such as Google Docs and Gmail, there are online photo editors, personal finance tools, and games.
There have been instances in the past where operating systems have been developed but the Google Chrome OS has got an advantage over its other rivals such as Linux lacked : the Web. Chrome OS faces the same applications challenge as any other operating system, but it’s rising to that challenge in a different way. It includes the Chrome browser running on a stripped-down version of Linux, but the applications won’t run on Linux, they’ll run on the Internet.
Google is certainly progressing by leaps and bounds. Nine months ago when they released the chrome browser, most of the people would say that it would never be able to challenge firefox and might not be able to make people shift from firefox to chrome but they did that. Yes they did. Today more than 30 million people are using Google Chrome regularly and thats really a huge achievement considering the fact that its only been around for nine months. And they certainly have got a lot more to offer. I just can’t wait for Google Chrome OS to be released. Its not going to be an easy task by any means but i believe they can do it.
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