This news will not surprise anybody who keeps a watch on what Google has been doing! - The official announcement of "Introduction of Google Chrome OS" at the Google blog.
And it brings an end to a number of rumors in forwards circulated, apprehensions posted in several blogs etc. on Google's future plans of coming out with an OS. Those stories we heard were mostly on the a possible foray by Google into the OS market for personal computers presently dominated by MS. This is a sample of such an article I read long time back - found from the bookmarks! Anyway now the suspense is over.
It looks to be a web based OS (similar to the eye OS) with probably lot more features - that s the Google way, we know.
Here is what I think it might look like:
A light-weight kernel (may be a modified Linux) boots on a netbook or laptop with limited resources, starts a minimal GUI. And this GUI could provide an easy way to connect to the web, with an extended form of an internet browser (Yes, there comes Chrome) or the user starts the browser on his own. The user gets access to various web applications for typical home/office needs - a word processor, spread sheet, presentation packs.. and may be multimedia stuff as well!
The data could be actually saved in the clouds, the distributed storage behind the web and cached at your netbook!
Okay, these are my free thoughts on what this could be - I am just trying to imagine how would this one might look like :) ..!
Google is partnering with many netbook manufactures and let s hope this reaches the needy at an affordable price. One of the advantages for netbooks is their low cost and usefulness to general computing users, and can have a better reach if sold at lower price - a low cost OS comes significant there.
Isn't Google addressing the most common need of majority of computer users - internet surfing?, providing a clean,efficient and simple platform serving the basic needs - that of the netbook.
Would it be like the splashtop where a chrome browser connected to an "eyeOS" like web based system with many Web2.0 applications?
Here is another interesting post at the splashtop.
- Is computing becoming more and more affordable?
- Will it reach the masses?
- Will it bring down the digital divide?
Wait and see!.
