Google's Chrome May Shift the OS Landscape

Google is hosting an event today to offer the first official glimpse at the Chrome operating system. Chrome has ignited enthusiasm in an operating system market that has been largely stagnant for years. Google may succeed in shaking things up a bit.

When you mention Google in conjunction with any upcoming tool or service it tends to draw some attention. When you put Google in the same sentence with 'new operating system'--directly challenging Microsoft in a market it has mercilessly dominated for decades--the rumor mill kicks into high gear. Vegas may even be taking odds.

For all of the speculation and rumors, there is little that is really known about the Chrome OS. There have been fake Chrome OS downloads, spoofed screenshots, and a seemingly endless stream of hearsay and conjecture based on virtually nothing.

Hopefully that will change today when Google shows off a demo of the current state of Chrome. Ironically, whether or not Google will use the press event to announce availability of an early beta of the operating system is also a point of speculation. It seems safe to assume that we will at least know more about the Chrome OS than we do now.

Let's go ahead and join the speculation party, though. For a change of pace, though, we won't gossip about rumors regarding the operating system itself. Instead, we'll ponder what impact a Google Chrome OS can truly hope to have on the operating system market.

The war between Microsoft and Apple for computer platform dominance predates both the Windows and Mac operating systems. The battle between Windows and Mac has been a source of passionate debate since....well, since the Windows and Mac operating systems have existed. Even earlier if you consider the embryonic days of Windows when it was just a graphic environment that was installed over the MS-DOS operating system.

Linus Torvalds developed the Linux kernel in 1991. Linux did not really reach the mainstream until Red Hat succeeded in achieving some level of commercial success with it around 2000. There are a wide variety of Linux builds available today. Arguably the most popular currently is Ubuntu Desktop from Canonical.

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