ColdFusioning.com

Late last night Google announced that they are going to be releasing an open source operating system called "Google Chrome OS". According to their blog, they are going to be releasing the source code later this year and expect netbooks to come pre-installed with it in the later half of 2010.

It is really interesting is that they are touting their new operating system as "a natural extension of Google Chrome". Apparently they are taking a page out of Microsoft's book by tying the operating system directly in with the browser. Albeit, they do not have a monopoly on "Intel-based personal computers" but it sounds a lot like what Microsoft did in the late 90s.

I think the other reason for the closely shared name with the browser is they are blurring the lines between operating system and the Internet itself. They want people to think of their computer as being only the Internet and as such, have developed their "office suite" applications, and now operating system, as paralleled to the Internet as possible. Certainly they will have to offer offline access to the OS and applications (Gears?) and allow for other applications to be installed.

I wonder if people are going to call Google out on backtracking on their previous position of not planning to build an operating system. In April of 2008, Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, said "We don't have any plans to build an operating system."

Maybe they already had it built?