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Google Chrome is the Google OS

Those who are Google Fans would have by now already installed the new Google Chrome browser. For those of you who have not, here is the link to download the installer (~450KB). [Caveat: The installer downloads the app from the web, so you need connectivity for installing also. The app downloads about a 100MB of files during installation.]

For a long time the industry has speculated about the Google OS and so many have proclaimed Google search engine and Google Adsense to be the [notional] OS of the web; rumor mills and fiery debates have been done across blogosphere - but none of these has been convincing enough. But surprizingly enough, since the release of Chrome, no one has revisted the debate - apparantly people are too precoccupied with testing the browser and revealing its privacy flaws. 

I believe, Chrome is what we all have been waiting for as the Google OS. When they themselves proclaim in their introductory comic book - [Ref: Page 4] "We are applying the same kind of Process Isolation you find in Modern Operating Systems" - they are just short of saying that they are building a browser which will become the virtual OS on which all web-based applications will run. 

And what more evidence do you need than the Task Manager feature built into the browser to justify the OS capabilities. 



For those of you adventurous enough, just click the "Stats for Nerds" link on the Task Manager (or type about:memory in the address bar of Chrome). You will find more information than your windows task manager there - from the process IDs of the sites you are surfing to their virtual and real memory utilization.

More and more applications we use are moving online today - Zoho, Google Docs and LiveDocuments have already taken desktop publishing online. Most enterprise applications (think SAP) either already are web based or have web based interfaces. For example Salesforce.com and similar apps are taking CRM and salesforce management online. The world is not far when we would not need any installed applications on our desktops/laptop other than the browser; and the browser would be your OS. 

With Linux, the basic OS is free - the day Chrome is available for Linux clones, you can get a PC with Zero software costs (the OS is free, the browser is free - and beyond that everything is on the web). Usage based software revenue model will then become the the de facto mehtod - junking Microsoft's license based model. ... we are indeed living in exciting times!!
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