Will Google ever release an OS?

Zascar

With everything going to direction of cloud computing, most of us operate almost completely on the web, it would make a lot of sense for Google to be working on their own OS - a very small and lightweight OS that would run on anything and provide simple and easy access to the things you need and use3 most - all Google orientated. Is this really on the way and how long do you think it might take?

aidan_walsh

Google have an OS, Android. Some netbook manufacturers are reportedly looking at adapting it for that line.

Zascar

Ok how about an OS aimed at the mass market on PC's & normal Laptops etc? A replacement for Windows...

mickoneill30

They already have Android.

If enough applications were web based it doesn't matter what OS you're using. In that case linux should take off more too. In my business 80% of our applications are web / citrix / terminal server / linux compatible. It's that 20% that is stopping us from moving to linux. To move totally to a web based OS is a much bigger jump.

Edit: Beaten by Aiden.

mickoneill30

Zascar wrote: »

Ok how about an OS aimed at the mass market on PC's & normal Laptops etc? A replacement for Windows...

Why? Why not just grab a linux variant and customise it to be GoogleOS? There are piles of apps that would work on that straight away.

Edit: Your original post asked about a very small and lightweight OS. The second post is asking about a mass market OS ot replace Windows. Those aren't the same things.

An Fear Aniar

Every other OS faces the same problem in taking share from Windows - in the work environment many critical applications will only run on Windows.

For the home user, many PC games are only available for Windows.

Also, some applications that people insist on, such as Photoshop and Autocad will only run on Windows. There are alternatives that will run on Linux, or BSD but they're not quite as good.

.

mickoneill30

There you go. They are.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

It's Chrome on top of a Linux kernel. They say they'll be on netbooks from next year. I'm not too convinced about the market but competition is good anyway.

Zascar

Cool! Can't wait to find out more!

seamus

With the move towards online processing and things like Google Docs, the importance of Desktop and Laptop OSes will diminish over the next few years. Provided that an OS can do a few basic things such as running a web browser with vaguely standard views and controls, it will be good enough for most business applications.

BopNiblets

They have Android on a LiveCD already, easy to try out in a VM.
http://code.google.com/p/live-android/