Google Announces Chrome OS in 2010: What Now OS X and Windows!

It’s official, Google is joining the fight for operating dominance with their announcement that the Google Chrome OS is coming in 2010. What does this mean? Well for starters, Windows and OS X have some competition, especially Microsoft, which has more to lose than Apple in the OS battle.

Google claims their operating system will be open source, lightweight that can “power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems, virus free with an entire new security architecture and a design similar to windows but based of a Linux kernel. Google has been prepping for this since their release of the Chrome browser nine months ago and their extremely intuitive Android software on smartphones.

Although this announcement may be a big step for a company that’s always been web based, they won’t have any trouble gaining market share from the two bigger rivals. They’ve already established themselves as a brand, a household name with products we use everyday.

Google’s OS announcement comes on the heels of a day when they removed the BETA tag from many of their online applications such as GMail, Docs, and Calenders.

In their Official Blog, Google says they’ll continue to have web based applications, to maintain an ecosystem allowing apps to be used almost anywhere. To Google, the new operating system will be about speed, simplicity, and users. Where they’ll benefit most is from the user base they already have. Unless Google launches a slew of new native applications, the Chrome OS will be a very easy transition for many.

“We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet.”

Now it’s just a wait and see game as Google says their OS will be available in 2010 on various netbooks and notebooks but we’d like to know, how much is this new operating system going to cost us and are the apps going to continue to be offered for free like they are now?

You can find the entire Google announcement here.

(Via Wall Street Journal and Engadget)