Google Chrome, the next CloudOS

When Google introduced the Chrome browser, a broad discussion about it and about how it could be transformed in the OS of the cloud emerged. The biggest secret that everyone know was realised when Google introduced their plans for Google Chrome OS in their post on the Google Blog . Although based on Linux, it is really a greatly enhanced runtime environment that still abstracts away Traditional OSs. The highlights below talk about Google's consistent vision – the web is the platform . "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. Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform. Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android." I have before argued that the balanced compute model presents the greatest relevance to the user's daily work. This is precisely there where I think that products such as the Google Chrome OS will have a strong impact - not because they are rich or thin clients to access the Cloud, but because they enable the Cloud to actually work for users in a way that has real meaning to them. It's obvious that in a commercial perspective, a complete Could ecosystem is something in Google's interests - precisely why they need to be careful to maintain an open platform. In any case, this is no doubt a major step forward for the Cloud Computing paradigm.