Google Chrome Operating System
 

Late last night (July 7 2009) Google announced the launch of it's own operating system... sort of. Since we "live" a lot on the www anyway, Google is trying to offer a virtual computer for you to work with, basically transforming your local machine into a dummy terminal.

Based on Linux, it is, of course, planned to be open source, and it should hit the market first in some laptops, the second half of 2010.

The official announcement can be read on Google Blogs: Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

"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."

Adobe annouced some of its partners/developers for the new platform and it is an impressive list: Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments. I'm especially interested to see what Abobe comes up with.

Chrome OS Partners: Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments

You meant:

"Google announced some of its partners..." - right?

Interesting perspective on Apple and Google: http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/10/goo...ch-google.html

Yes, i meant "announced." Too late to edit it I fear. :)

Back on topic, Intel is working with them too. NewsFactor Network | Intel Confirms It Helped Develop Google's Chrome OS

While think this is a cool development... Even if chrome is a raging success, I think it is going to be a couple years before it has any real effect on our industry.

Seems like it won't impact the NLE much.

Maybe not in a direct way; running an NLE remotely is not the best way.

Where I see a significant impact: with Google joining in, Linux will definitely get a big boost. There are already a number of open source video editors for Linux - with Google on the growing list of corporate sponsors, the development of Linux-based NLEs will pick up speed for sure.

My impression though is this will not be just another linux desktop system - linux will just be the underlying system. I think what they're going for here is essentially a direct boot into a web browser with no visible surrounding OS (desktop, filesystem, etc). If that's the case I don't think it'll have much if any impact on existing linux-based editors as they're designed to work in a traditional windowing system.

Evan,

I think you're right in the short term - Chrome will be for simple netbooks at first.

Over time, the scope will likely expand. Elements of Chrome's simplicity for end users will creep into Linux and more Linux features will creep into Chrome.

In five or ten years, Chrome could become a much bigger beast.

I could be way off base here, but I don't think Chrome OS is intended to compete with Windows or OS X. I think Google has a different angle: get the netbooks and casual users to use Chrome OS because it's free, make it appealing with plugins like Google Docs and GMail, and make it open-source so the big app makers can easily write software for it. Google's #1 revenue source is online advertising, and with a sizable chunk of the casual & light business users using Chrome eventually, that's a lot more eyeballs in front of the banner ads.

I think it's really just a marketing strategy to get more people online for longer periods of time to drive the ad revenue. If it works, it could be their most brilliant move yet...

It looks like a "thin client" approach - for most users, a clean fast OS with apps online and email, instant message, and whatnot would probably be adequate - like these new little netbooks.

Not everyone needs a big powerful system, but I'd venture that it'll be a while (if ever) before anyones' doing serious editing on "Chrome OS".

The Chrome browser is actually rather cool and minimalist, and quite fast. I still use IE 8 though, because it's more refined and compatible with more sites. The competition is good, so bring it on!