Chrome OS,Computers running Chrome OS,Chrome OS late

 

When a Google engineer gave top executives computers running the company's new Chrome operating system, Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, tried to hold on to his computer running an older version.

"I reached to take the old one, and he reaches to grab it," recalled Linus Upson, the vice president for engineering in charge of Chrome. "Then he realizes, 'I don't need it."'

That is because Chrome stores everything that people have on their computers -- like documents, photos and e-mail -- online, or in tech parlance, in the cloud. In Google's vision of a world where all computers run on its Chrome OS, anyone can walk up to any computer with an Internet connection and gain access to all their information.

If Brin was momentarily confused, it is no wonder that Google users and analysts are struggling to wrap their heads around what Google is trying to do with Chrome.

It is all the more confusing because Google already has a Web browser named Chrome. And Google already has an operating system, called Android.

Google says it will become clearer by the end of the year, when the company will introduce to the public a lightweight netbook computer that runs Chrome. Though Google declined to give details of the device, it is expected to be manufactured by another company and branded by Google, similar to the way Google released its Nexus phone, which runs on Android.

Google has high hopes for Chrome, and as the company weathers criticism for relying too much on search advertising for revenue, its executives have been describing Chrome as one of Google's new businesses with huge potential.

With Chrome OS, Google is stepping once again into the territory of its archrivals, Microsoft and Apple, both of which make operating systems as well as widely used desktop software like Microsoft Office and Apple iPhoto and iTunes.

That software would not work on Chrome computers. Instead, Chrome users would use Google's Web-based products, like Docs, Gmail and Picasa for word processing, email and photos, or software from other companies, like Microsoft's cloud-based Office 365. Google also plans to open a Chrome app store for software developers to dream up other Chrome tools.

The Chrome browser, which is installed on 8 per cent of all PCs, shares a name because the operating system is, essentially, the same thing as the browser. "When people look at Chrome OS, they're going to be like, 'It's just a browser, there's nothing exciting here,"' Upson said. "Exactly. It's just a browser, there's nothing exciting here – that's the point."

Computers running Chrome OS will start in seconds, not minutes, and then users will see a browser through which applications and data can be used.

Yet while Google imagines a Web-based future, analysts wonder whether Chrome's time has passed – before Google netbooks even hit the market.

When Google first talked about Chrome last year, netbooks -- small, low-cost laptops with keyboards --were all the rage. But since then, smart phones and tablets -- slate PCs with touchscreens, like the iPad --have crushed that market.