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VIRTUALISATION Google announces Chrome OS
VIRTUALISATION Google announces Chrome OS | Google announces Chrome OS |
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| by Stephen Withers | |
| Wednesday, 08 July 2009 | |
  
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And if you uncouple applications from the OS, how much of the existing operating system becomes redundant? Google reckons the answer is "a lot." So the company has announced Google Chrome OS. Described as "a natural extension of Google Chrome" and "an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks", Google OS will use the Linux kernel. It will be distinguishable from the bulk of Linux distros by the provision of a new windowing system with Chrome as the front end. "For application developers, the web is the platform" so applications written for Google Chrome OS will also run on standards-based browsers on other operating systems (specifically Windows, Mac OS X and Linux). Is it a coincidence that Google announced Chrome OS shortly after dropping the beta tag from Google Apps? In an apparent reference to Acer's recent demonstration of a netbook running Android, Google officials emphasised that Google Chrome OS is something separate from Android. "Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems." The Google Chrome OS code will be open-sourced later this year, and Google expects the first netbooks running the new operating system to appear in the second half of 2010. The company is already discussing the project with hardware vendors. Don't make the mistake of thinking that Chrome OS is just for netbooks and maybe nettops: the statement by Google's vice president of product management Sundar Pichai and engineering director Linus Upson emphasises that the new OS is intended for everything from netbooks to desktops. |
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