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Google on Thursday released the code for its Chrome OS project to the open source community, removing any ambiguity that may have existed about its intention to tip the Microsoft Windows cash cow with an easy-to-use Linux based alternative.
At a press conference at the Mountain View, Calif.-based Googleplex, Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Matthew Papakipos, engineering director, offered a tantalizing glimpse of what Chrome OS consists of today and where Google wants the open source community to help take it.
Chrome OS is still about a year away from launch, and Google hasn't yet released a beta version. Nor is Google ready to start talking in detail about how it plans to bring Chrome OS to market, except to note that devices should arrive in time for the 2010 holiday season.
But in spite of these missing details, there are "important concepts" in the current Chrome OS build that will carry over to the final product, according to Pichai.
Google's initial target with Chrome OS is netbooks with solid state drives that support only Web applications, he said. It's a narrow focus, but one that reflects the growing prevalence of cloud computing and Google's goal of offering users a simple, yet high performance experience.
In Chrome OS, every application is a Web application, which means users won't have to install programs or software. Instead, they'll just click on links and use Web applications. "Google's goal is to make Web applications function as well as desktop applications," Pichai said. "All data in Chrome OS is in the cloud, which means it's instantly available to you anywhere."
Google plans to work with hardware partners to bring to market "slightly larger" Chrome OS netbooks with larger keyboards, Pichai said. In doing so, Google is taking a page from the Apple playbook by tightly integrating Chrome with the underlying hardware.
"We really want the software to understand the underlying hardware so that Chrome OS can be as fast as possible," Pichai said.
In both Chrome OS and the Chrome Web browser, Google has focused on speed, simplicity and security. Chrome OS in its current form takes just seven seconds to boot, and Google is trying to make that even faster, Pichai said. And because Chrome doesn't run conventional applications, it doesn't need to start up background services, which also leads to faster performance.
"We want Chrome to be blazingly fast. We want it to be more like a television than a computer," said Pichai.
