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Google to Launch PC Operating System
Google has sensed a window of opportunity: The company is taking aim at Microsoft’s Windows operating system by releasing an operating system of its own. “The system, based on Google’s Chrome Web browser, is designed for all classes of PCs, ‘from small netbooks to full-sized desktop systems’, and will be available in machines from ‘multiple’ PC makers in the second half of next year,” according to the Financial Times. Google promised its OS would resolve many of the frustrations of Windows users, from slow start-up times to viruses. The Chrome OS will first appear on notebooks in the second half of 2010.
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Genni2002
Oh? This sounds exciting. Give MS a run for its money? Guess we will have to wait and see but 2010 is not so far off.
waltben
Don't know as I see this as an improvement. Although I love the search engine, Google loves to nibble around and sometimes cross my privacy line on a regular basis, and certainly does so with it's tool bar and other 'Googlies'.
RnRCarnival
I'm with Waltben on this one. I have Google Chrome (which does NOT require IE, it is an independent browser) and I really like it but monopolizing the entire system under Google software goes a little too far. They'll probably design a great product, but everyday I'm a little more aware of Google's prying eyes and that just sounds like too much.
squiggy
It will probably require IE to operate like Opera did.
JDK-JDK
Google has their own IE... Google Chrome... which I use and like MUCH MUCH better than Windows.
Windows is SO SLOW... I didn't realize just how slow untilI started using Chrome.
squiggy
Glad to know that JDK! I am wary of prying eyes and have used firefox for long time. Will have to check it out! Thanks!
Veronicaxy
Actually their approach is both radical and an obvious progression with all the runtimes coming out that threaten to make any browser and OS inconsequential (Flash, Silverlight, Java): Google is making the browser the OS essentially, and the browser is far more flexible than an OS to adopting new technologies, including runtimes. That's why it's "Chrome OS".
What I find fascinating about Android is that Dalvik, the runtime that makes applications work on Android shows how little is really needed from the OS.
Don't count out MS though. Check out their Mesh strategy which is currently in beta. It's also radical (OS agnostic -- really? from MS?) and brilliant. MS still owns most computing today. Ray O. is proving to be worth his money.
And no, I don't work for MS and am very pro-UNIX/Linux when it comes to an OS :)
durden
Interesting. It's no doubt based on some sort of linux kernel. Too bad Google just doesn't back the Ubuntu team. But at least this way a big company with a big recognizable name outside of Apple will be providing users with another choice of operating system.
Veronicaxy
Google wants to own the stack imho and Ubuntu's open philosophy doesn't mesh. The only way Google has ever been able to figure out how to make money is by selling ads for search. They probably want to 'lock the stack' so they get as many eyes on their search results as possible, no Bing or Yahoo please. Chrome is a better fit for their application strategy, it ensures they control the strategy and software on devices, even if those devices belong to Dell, Samsung, etc.
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squiggy
It's sad but MS brought the internet to the people, it is not going away just like our oil based economy is not going green in the near future.
primemover
Unix / Linux brought the internet to the people. Microsoft was in the backroom counting money. You really need to research your comments before you toss them out there. Microsoft admitted that they never saw the internet thing coming.
squiggy
I was thinking in terms of windows, mad it mass popular, linux is still clunky for mass people, run the kernel on laptop to avoid viruses.
Dimlah
Google, with a networth of over $154 billion is hardly a David. Microsoft might be bigger, but once you reach a certain point where you can afford to hire as many top programmers and purchase as much advertising as you want...
Let's please not pretend that Google is still run by two twenty year olds working out of a garage.
Slamlander
Squiggy: It's the web browser that brought the internet to people. Mickeysoft was caught dead flatfooted by Nutscrape and it took them years to catch up.
Dimlah: You were thinking about Yahoo. Google was different.
et alia: Google Chrome is a serious security liability and privacy hole. Installing it, in some organizations, is a firing offense. I do NOT want an OS that will pop up targeted ads or collect and leak "marketing information". Google has a very poor track record there and they have a lot of trust issues to overcome.
JDK-JDK
You can turn off all the information collection on Chrome. I've run it since it came out and it puts MSIE to SHAME. It's twice as fast and doesn't lock up nearly as much as MSIE.
squiggy
Lord, I had forgotten about netscape, ran until sold to AOL, then firefox, will have to try out this new browser, has anyone figured out how to do a 98 lite take out of IE from windows?
Veronicaxy
I was a web developer in the early days and I can tell you it took only MS two years to knock out Netscape completely from relevance. It was absolutely frightening to see how quickly that worked when they understood what was at stake. Netscape was elegant and simple. MS stuffed IE full of features (and bugs) that integrated with their other applications -- coupled with their desktop ownership and that most people just want to use what's in front of them...
EtienneEtoile
Not until they clean up their privacy invasion issues!
DrMojo
Walthen is right. The choice comes down to a lumbering system that basically gets the job done versus a system that has, over the past few years and certainly more so as of late, encroached on the privacy of the individual. Google's Chrome is nice and flashy and is leading the way to ignoring the individual's right to privacy.
That from Google, a company once seen as liberating the Web with faster, fresher ideas. It has gone from a hopeful presence to one far more intrusive than anything Windows has to offer.
Chrome's cheerful homepage display of your browsing history is enough to get it punted off my computer on principle. It'll be a great, fast Operating System designed to quickly knock down your personal privacy and, on that point, it will succeed.
tlellenb
This is probably great news for Microsoft to defend itself from further anti-trust legislation over the next 10 years. I was kind of hoping that that Google would fix the Chrome web browser before it moves onto another product like an operating system. I also wonder why Google doesn't contribute development resources and leadership to a Linux distribution like Ubuntu rather than take a go-it-alone approach that requires device manufacturers to potentially create/compile/maintain a new set of drivers (assuming they are already doing so for Microsoft and Linux lines).
primemover
I asked Microsoft to let me have a copy of Windows XP in exchange for their fraud OS Vista I purchased. I heard nothing.
I will ask for Windows 7 in exchange for my Windows Fraud OS Vista. I am sure I will not hear from Microsoft, but then they will never hear from me again either.
Go Google Go. And remember "DO NO EVIL."
EtienneEtoile
Time for a mac! Explore Ubuntu!
mattbenzor
Let the battle begin its on .I would buy it but lets see what they do to protect the PC from any virus will they have a better protection system with it .Cause evrybody wants there PC protected from crap.....!
PinkoLefty
It will be very easy for Google to beat MS in terms of performance. They will have none of the issues associated with being backward compatible with every process model dating back to MS-DOS and none of the baggage of supporting bad or under-exploited design decisions that cannot be deprecated.
The real problem here is that large-scale user uptake is going to depend on an office suite that's compatible with MS Office file formats. I think Google is in for a lot of work here - unfortunately, most of it will probably be for the legal team.
guiltybystander
we can only hope neither gets a nuclear weapon
squiggy
can we vote on that? LOL
Veronicaxy
You aren't kidding. If I wanted to take over world dominion, I wouldn't bother invading a country, I'd take over Google's servers.
JerryWithaJ
I'm afraid this is a big yawn. Most users don't care about the operating system. They care about applications and are too heavily invested in Windows applications to start all over again. There's the cost, and then there's the fact that while most big applications have Linux equivalents that are just as powerful, many small specialized applications don't.
There are already a bunch of easy to use Linux OSes. If this was what the world wanted they would already have gone viral.
Rdschenkel
I care about the operating system. I don't like Windows Vista's new menue layout, so I switch it to classic.
JerryWithaJ
but not to Linux.
artois
This is undoubtedly Eric Shmidt's personal revenge for having been humiliated by Ballmer at Novell! My ultimate prediction is that MS prevails.
Johnnorth
Why bother with MS or Google when there's Mac?
JDK-JDK
Because a MAC costs about 4x's as much.
EtienneEtoile
Initial outlay maybe 2x - (but it is like comparing apples and road apples)
you do not need all the virus and firewall subsciptions, mine has not crashed yet except on occasion when I run XP in Bootcamp, but overall it is a super platform for XP
A lot can be said for the lack of aggravation. You might even save on health care, reduced high blood pressure!
JDK-JDK
I bought a Sony Vaio with 4GB memory and a 320GB hard drive for $450 over christmas. It's never crashed on me... I've had nothing but good service from kit.
That's twice the memory and hard drive as the low-end MacBook Pro at a third of the cost.
EtienneEtoile
JDK-JDK - I own a few PCs as well and I agree they are a bargain. I suppose I get aggravated waiting for the virus scans, constant updates from uncle Bill that have to be dealt with. Add a new hard drive and then spend an hour calling uncle Bill so he can verify that you did not pirate his operating system. Installing software in Vista and never being able to fully uninstall, worrying about which website I surf to giving me the clap. For the sake of brevity I will not continue.
I would rather spend time using my computers than them using me.
Tell me in a year how your experience with the Vaio is going. For the average user, they buy a new computer every year as the old one is all gunked up and runs too slow. I have helped friends and family ungunk their pcs and it usually is about a 3 hour affair.
Don't knock the mac until you have experienced it.
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