There has been much talk and excitement around google’s entry in to the OS market. ChromeOS is essentially an internet based operating system that revolves around a user’s gmail account. It’s light, portable, and provides access to all of google’s services with a couple of extra features like Hulu (US only). Other hardware manufacturers on board with ChromeOS include Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments. These manufacturers behind ChromeOS will surely give the operating system some momentum and Dell would like to position itself as the industry leader. Expect to see ChromeOS on Dell computers by holiday season 2010.
Portable operating systems have garnered a lot of steam since the release of the first iPhone in 2007. Google’s entry into the market with the Android OS took it to the next level by providing an open source platform and an unrestricted market place for distributing apps. Google also announced last month that they will be getting into the home media arena with GoogleTV. It is unsure exactly how ChromeOS, Android and GoogleTV will be integrated, but I think we can expect to see cross platform apps and connectivity to home media as never seen before. Stay tuned, the portable OS market is about to get very interesting.