Image: Sundar Pichai, vice president for product management, said that Google’s free Chrome operating system would be fast and get users onto the Web in a few seconds.
If at times you’re frustrated with your PC — and who isn’t? — Google says it is working on a solution.
Many people easily lose patience with PCs that are slow to start up and prone to crashing, vulnerable to virus attacks and constantly in need of fiddly updates. Hoping to turn that irritation to its advantage, Google is developing an operating system — the underlying software that handles the most basic functions of a computer.
With the software, Google is mounting a blunt challenge to the dominance of Microsoft, whose Windows operating system runs about 95 percent of PCs. Google promises that its Chrome operating system, which will be available on computers in the second half of next year, will put an emphasis on speed, simplicity and security.
But if it gains traction, Google’s plan could undermine not only Windows but also Microsoft’s other multibillion-dollar franchise, Office. Google is trying to put the Web browser at the center of people’s digital lives, relegating complicated operating systems like Windows to a secondary role.
“We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the Web in a few seconds,” Sundar Pichai, a vice president for product management, and Linus Upson, an engineering director, said in a blog post announcing the project late Tuesday. “We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better.”
The plan is part of Google’s bet that a huge shift in computing is under way. In Google’s view, Web connections will become so fast and browsers so powerful that most of the programs that currently run on PCs will be replaced by online applications. That would eliminate the need to install, upgrade and back up software.
If at times you’re frustrated with your PC — and who isn’t? — Google says it is working on a solution.
Many people easily lose patience with PCs that are slow to start up and prone to crashing, vulnerable to virus attacks and constantly in need of fiddly updates. Hoping to turn that irritation to its advantage, Google is developing an operating system — the underlying software that handles the most basic functions of a computer.
With the software, Google is mounting a blunt challenge to the dominance of Microsoft, whose Windows operating system runs about 95 percent of PCs. Google promises that its Chrome operating system, which will be available on computers in the second half of next year, will put an emphasis on speed, simplicity and security.
But if it gains traction, Google’s plan could undermine not only Windows but also Microsoft’s other multibillion-dollar franchise, Office. Google is trying to put the Web browser at the center of people’s digital lives, relegating complicated operating systems like Windows to a secondary role.
“We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the Web in a few seconds,” Sundar Pichai, a vice president for product management, and Linus Upson, an engineering director, said in a blog post announcing the project late Tuesday. “We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better.”
The plan is part of Google’s bet that a huge shift in computing is under way. In Google’s view, Web connections will become so fast and browsers so powerful that most of the programs that currently run on PCs will be replaced by online applications. That would eliminate the need to install, upgrade and back up software.
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I love the Idea that everything software would be virtual. It would have the potential to make every future sci-fi movie real. We would all have computer tablets that would replace laptops, PDA's, Desktops, books, paper notebooks and many other things! Just think of having a google notebook as a video phone as your walking to class or using it for a self guided museum tour, it would even be your navi, ipod, digital camera and wallet! I love the idea of virtual life for convenience of use and centralized everything. Go Google make it happen!
