Google Chrome OS – The Final Step?

July 21, 2009 - 7:28 am | 686 views

On 7th July 2009, Google announced the Google Chrome Operating System. The Google Chrome OS, initially for Netbooks, is going to be an open source, light weight operating system, built on top of Linux. It is designed to run on both X86 and ARM architectures.

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For someone who has been a Google fan for years, maybe ever since it was launched, this announcement didn’t come as a surprise. When I first heard this news, I simply smiled and said to myself “Finally. It was about time”.

Google’s first product was the unassailable (till now) Google Search. I am sure that hardly few will disagree when I say that this has been Google’s best product till date, winning hands down in its competition with other Google Products. Google Search web page simply opened up to a text box and a search button, but followed after wards was a result of painstaking effort and brilliant algorithm writing from the two Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google Search redefined web search and Google soon became a household name. Searching on the internet was never so fruitful.

For years Google continued to dominate the web with its search, term like “googling” became synonymous with searching on the web, but on the parallel, Google was working to grow.

Google Mail, like Google Search revolutionized Email Service. It was a much better use of technology and provided users with 1GB of storage space, something that was unheard of during that time. Slowly other internet companies started creating websites using technology which Google made famous and some others started using this technology and modeled their mail boxes like Google, but by then Google had created a space for itself. With the addition of Instant Messaging, Google Talk inside Google Mail and as an independent application also, Google Mail simply became the one stop for mailing and chatting activities.

So how was Google earning money? AdSense was the answer for that. It won’t be wrong to say that Google Revolutionized advertising on the web. People could sign up for AdSense and even post the ads on their websites and in the process earn some good or sometimes even great money.

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While this was on, Google purchased the hottest online video viewing and storage site, YouTube. Google, if not revolutionized, but had become the No.1 in yet another field of the internet.

Slowly and steadily Google started recognizing important Silicon Valley Startups and started buying them one after the other.Through such acquisitions came the Blogger, Google’s blog publishing site. Blogging was another thing that gaining popularity as a result of the internet and Google did not want to stay behind. Blogger quickly reached amongst the top blog providers.

Google Earth was another revolutionary product, which came to Google as a result of another acquisition. Google Earth was something that interested everyone and although privacy issues did crop up, there was no denying the fact that Google Earth and Google Maps was another feather in Google’s cap. Google has made advancement to Google Maps technology by incorporating distance calculation algorithms. So simply go ahead and put your source and destination and Google will calculate the best possible routes for you and even tell you how much time you are going to take to reach there.

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Social Networking was another hot thing along with blogging and Google had Orkut for that. Although not that popular in USA, but Orkut became a rage in India and Brazil when launched.

Google introduced the Google Labs, wherein new products where disclosed. Google slowly started coming up with products, which every user would require. You want to subscribe to RSS Feeds? Google Reader was the answer. You want to keep notes? Google Notebook was there. You want to keep calendar entries? Google Calendar is there for you. You want online photo storage? Picasa is there for you. You want the preview of the latest bestsellers or simply open and read an old magazine? Google Books was there for you. You want to buy something online? Google Products was there for you. You want to see the latest financial details? Google Finance was there. You want to check the latest news? Google News was available. You want to create your own personalized Google Home Page? IGoogle was your answer.

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But in the midst of all this, Google acquired another startup and starting developing their product which ultimately became the Google Docs. Google Docs was, simply put, very tiny to begin with. But slowly Google started adding features and applications to it. Document, Spreadsheet and Presentation have slowly started to look like a complete package.

On September 2, 2008, Google released yet another amazing product from its stable. That was the Google Chrome. If I say that Google Chrome once again wanted to revolutionize a browser, then I don’t think many will oppose. It had a fast V8 JavaScript engine, which directly converted JavaScript code to native code, thus gaining performance increase. Google Chrome was fast, secure, had a great user interface and it treated every single tab as an application, so that if one tab crashed, the other tabs won’t close down. Simple, but innovative!!

Now, let’s take a moment and look what we have inside our operating system. We have the items like Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Presentation Maker, Video Viewing software, Outlook Express (or something similar on other OS) etc.

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Now lets take a look at what Google has, shall we? It has a Google Docs (Word Processor, Spreadsheet and Presentation), it has You Tube, GMail, GTalk and many more.

So what was remaining? Something that could bind it all together!! And that’s where the Google Chrome OS comes into picture.

This was Google’s final nail on the coffin and its ultimate dream to conquer everything. Here it is. If you didn’t expect this, then I am surprised. This was something that was supposed to happen sooner or later.

Now I don’t care whether the Chrome OS is going to be a success or failure. Let us leave that to another discussion. But what we need to realize is that Google has finally showed us the complete picture. This was probably they were aiming for. This was the obvious next practical decision for them.

So let’s wait and watch how the Google Chrome OS shapes up. I am one person who is going to install it and appreciate it, however horrible (which I hope its not) it turns out to be.

Further Reading