Some of the biggest news to hit the technology world in a while just seemed to appear out of nowhere the other day, when Google announced the inevitable: they’re making an operating system. It’d been rumoured for a while, but Google are quite good at keeping secrets, so there was no real evidence that it was going to happen, until they made the announcement on their blog the other day. The name? (Google) Chrome OS.

Google announce their Chrome OS

In the days of the rumours, some even went so far as to make a Linux flavour that worked with a Mac Style Dock and only performed internet based tasks. The name of it was gOS. The website never made it very clear what the “g” in gOS was meant to stand for until just a tiny bit of disclaimer at the bottom of the website popped up, claiming that the “g” stood for “good”, crushing the rumours.

Back to the real Google OS. They’re are a web based company, so basing the operating system on the internet seems like a very smart move, which does beg the question: what if I’m not connected to the internet? Does the entire system buckle?

A few days after the press release, Google also announced a list of hardware partners who were prepared to make devices that would work with Chrome OS. Among those, was the chip maker ARM, British company who are just about the Intel of mobile computing. A lot of chips that go into mobile devices such as the iPhone are ARM chips. So announcing them as a hardware partner could mean one major thing that tackles the problem of always being connected to the web: an always on internet connection using mobile networks.

Mobile Broadband could be a centrepiece for Chrome OS

Sounds a bit farfetched, yes? Well, not really. ARM have quite a bit of experience in dealing with mobile networks through their devices, so it’s the obvious choice. The only thing that would really hold this back would be the mobile networks themselves, they’d have to jump on the operating system and push it through netbooks and mobile broadband contracts.

What I think is quite interesting about the news is that it’s not a direct competitor to the mainstream operating systems, while at the same time it is. It’s a new take on what an operating system should be, and in doing this, they’re creating an entire market for themselves.

I don’t expect the first version to be very much if I’m honest, although they’ve positioned themselves quite well with their launch date: 1 year after Snow Leopard and Windows 7, meaning they have time to take an innovation and make it their own. Though, saying this there seems to already be confusion in the Google camps as to where their operating system slots into the low end market, Android considered.

Confusion: Android was said to work on Netbooks, too.

When Google initially launched Android, they said that they want it on mobile devices and netbooks, but now they’re saying that Chrome is specifically for netbooks. How does that work? Well maybe Android is for even lower powered netbooks (which I can’t see much use for personally) and Chrome for newer models such as the Asus Shell for example.

I’m quite excited yet sceptical about the development for the system. There’s been reports that they’re working with Adobe and probably implementing their AIR platform into the OS as a primary technology. This means that web developers can make applications for the operating system using web technologies such as HTML and Javascript. The reason I’m slightly sceptical is because powerful as it is, Javascript is not a technology to do a lot of heavy lifting. Maybe they’ll be implementing some soft of way of accessing server-side code into the mix?

Back in April of 2008 I was at the Adobe AIR developer conference in London and Google were there. They demonstrated something to do with Javascript that showed so ways of seriously speeding it up, I can’t really remember the details now, but it all seems to make sense now: Google at the AIR developer conference showing off a Javascript catalyst – they we obviously in serious development of the OS, even back then.

AIR could be a major tech in Chrome OS.

What worries me slightly is that the operating system is going to be free, which is just how a Linux Flavour should be, but how are Google expecting to make money out of this? Their usual method is chucking advertisements into a product, but would they really do that with an operating system? It’d be easy enough given the HTML / Javascript interface.

So my thoughts? I think it’ll bring a lot to the market, I can see it doing well, but I can’t see it growing too fast. Give it about 10 years and I reckon it’ll be in the position Apple’s in now, with Apple having grabbed a 30% market share and forcing Windows down to 60% from just over 90%.

What do you think? Do you think it’ll be a winner, or just another Google product that goes into beta and never makes it out?

wow dude you are werent joking about the whole website thing seriously i’m amazed man proper clever as ought love you haha!