Chrome Gets Going

BANGALORE, INDIA: Google's world is web, it sees everything through this web prism; thats its strength as well as weakness in certain instances. While the whole world knows that this web giant is working on its PC OS, dubbed as Chromium (Chrome), it has generated a mixed interest.

Microsoft bashers have welcomed it, but at the same time Linux supporters are viewing it with caution. While Google till now has kept its PC OS under wraps, it gave an idea to the open source community by releasing the key build codes to seed further development recently. From now, the open source community can access the critical elements of the OS like the code base, user interface experiments, and initial designs frameworks.

Getting in Shape

While some of the developers have pieced the codes and packaged a bare bone Chrome OS, it looks like its a long way ahead. The OS is slated for a late 2010 launch, and is expected to drastically alter the netbook market.

According to some tech blogs, by the next year, Chrome based netbooks will come at very cheap price points; and that eventuality will totally redefine the PC landscape. There are Chrome OS versions floating in the P2P sites, and one can run the unofficial user built developer versions of Chrome OS. According to the information available in the web, to run the Chrome OS build, the users in the first place need to have a virtual machine like VMwares workstation or Suns virtual box

According to Google's official blog about Chrome OS, "First, its all about the web. All apps are web apps. The entire experience takes place within the browser, and there are no conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to deal with installing, managing and updating programs. Second, because all apps live within the browser, there are significant benefits to security. Unlike traditional operating systems, Chrome OS doesn't trust the applications you run. Each app is contained within a security sandbox, making it harder for malware and viruses to infect your computer. Furthermore, Chrome OS barely trusts itself. Every time you restart your computer the operating system verifies the integrity of its code."

Google also wants its OS to be fast. As per the information available, its taking out all the unnecessary processes, and putting a lot of parallel processing functionality to hasten multitasking as well as boot up and shutdown times.

While the Chrome OS build release to the open source community has generated worldwide interest, but at the same time the control users can have on the OS offline is yet to be seen. Its purely a cloud based operating system, and dependent on high speed net for most of the functionality to work. But its too early to predict the further evolution, and the subsequent market success.

Google is trying to open up a new premise in personal computing landscape with the Chrome OS. But it looks like the users will be tied to a Google ecosystem that will be meshed tightly with the OS like YouTube, Google Wave, Gmail, Gtalk, and other services that Google provides.

Likely Impact

Google's key rival, Microsoft had chosen to play its routine skepticism regarding the new OS, and had said that it can never become a threat to Windows OS. Even the Linux community is not at the moment really taken aback with the new Chrome OS build release. But experts say that once Google comes with a tightly meshed beta version of Chrome, it will set the ball rolling, and the OS functionality level can be really ascertained. But Google does have serious competition apart from Microsoft and Linux from instant on PC platform players like DeviceVM, which makes Spalshtop.

But at the end of the day, the Chromium released right now has sent a signal to the proprietary world that Google is very much bent on changing the rules of personal computing by pushing everything in the ambit of the cloud.

The PC is going to be just a device like a set-top box. Moreover, it is to be seen whether Chrome will work without a traditional start up BIOS. It is rumored that Chromium based netbooks will use solid state disks for faster start ups. With Google expected to launch this OS in a years time, it looks like an exciting road ahead for the developer community. Whether Google can engineer yet another disruptive web development with Chrome OS, will be put to an ultimate test in the days ahead.