Chrome OS - Google launches a second OS

When I first heard it mentioned on the news this week I thought the newsreader was probably mixing up the still relatively new Chrome browser with Google's mobile OS - Android. But no, it's really true, and it's nowhere near the first of April. Google have decided to launch yet another Operating System, this one named after their Webkit based browser.

Although the exact link between the browser and the OS are still quite unclear, the intention seems to be that Chrome OS will mainly form a barebone platform for running the Chrome browser on Netbooks, enabling them to load all additional functionalities and applications from the internet. It makes sense for a company whose success is completely web based to compete with the Microsoft Desktop Behemoth through web apps.

Although it seems odd timing to release another OS so soon after Android I guess it does makes some sense from a marketing point of view. They do have the human and technological resources to release new experiments at an amazing rate, so why not juggle as many balls as possible and just see which will stay up. Ballmer's quick denunciations of the project probably only betray Microsoft's increasing nervosity at the speed at which Google manages to introduce new games for the two to compete in.

But as of yet Chrome and Android have off course not been able to dent Microsoft's desktop and browser hegemony, just as Microsoft's Bing hasn't yet convinced a lot of Google users it can offer anything convincingly superior.

As Chrome OS appears to be Linux based it certainly tips the OS balance yet further in the direction Unix-like systems. Mac OSX, Android, Chrome OS and thousands of variations of Linux make it ever more likely that Linux based technologies have the future.

Also the development of all applications seems to be moving further and further toward the web. Good news for web developers I think.