The Google Operating System

The long awaited Google OS is a reality. Last night Google announced Google Chrome OS.

This is a big deal, and I have to think Microsoft is waking up to a very bad day.

It’s been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already, over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we’re announcing a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

While I’m happy that Google chose to base their OS on Linux, and could provide the push that finally gets Linux into the desktop mainstream, I’m a little worried about how tied into the OS Google will be. I’m not sure I like the idea of Google knowing everything I do.