There has been already lot of talking and discussion about Google Chrome OS, since Google announced a new OS. The fact that Google is now venturing into a field that it once considered untouchable is very surprising. Though Google reasons that today we don’t merely access websites; we use web applications and therefore need more stronger and lighter OS, I have a hunch that they want to finish Microsoft once and for all.

I remember the Google guys once saying that they would not consider entering the operating systems business as it was limited to the offline (desktop) medium. But now Google plans to launch an OS that will be online, free, secure and most importantly open source. This will allow the users to customize the OS as per their needs and requirements, which sounds very cool.

Google announced that it is working on an operating system based on Google Chrome (their browser). The OS-in-progress is simply called Google Chrome OS;  it is open source, and it will initially be aimed at netbooks and available in the second half of 2010. Now this move by the search engine giants will definitely impact Microsoft, who has been dominating the operating systems space since the last decade or so.

Google says the key aspects of Chrome OS (that distinguishes it from other OS) are:

• Speed
• Simplicity
• Security

Even if Chrome OS releases in 2010, its pretty clear that Google won’t be sitting and waiting to get reviews of their OS to start their next phase. They have already started to talk to hardware companies so that the OS can be shipped with the desktop systems as well.

A post on the Google Chrome Blog says that the Google Chrome OS team is working with an impressive list of computer products corporations including Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba. Though the post doesn’t mention Intel, but Dan Nystedt says that Intel is secretly working with Google on Chrome OS.

One thing is evident that Google has decided to go after Microsoft’s core business after MS tried to go after Google’s. If Google makes good on its promise of allowing users to get right to the web in seconds, the OS will likely be appealing to a lot of consumers who are used to Windows. And given the popularity of the Google brand, Microsoft will be forced to get into action to save its business.

What do you think?