While much of the Google Chrome OS speculation thus far has centered on Chrome OS' potential threat to Microsoft's Windows dominance and its position as a the netbook OS provider of choice, Chrome OS has also restarted the debate on just how soon -- if ever -- software that runs entirely on a Web browser will replace desktop software as a standard.

Indeed, if Chrome OS succeeds, it'll crash a few paradigms, for sure, and Google's made no bones about betting that it will. The company's support for new Web standards such as HTML 5 -- which promises to make Web pages and applications much more sophisticated -- is well-documented, as is Google Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra's statement at the Google I/0 2009 developer conference in May that "the Web has won." If Web applications still can't offer as much or more than traditional desktop OS software can, Google, with Google Chrome OS, seems bent on making sure they do.

How will Google compete against Microsoft on the OS front? For now, while we wait for Chrome OS, it'll be in name recognition alone: one titan attempting to topple another, and opening up another front in the endlessly discussed Google-Microsoft rivalry that extends everywhere from search engines (Google's search platform versus Microsoft's new Bing) to personal health records (Google Health versus Microsoft HealthVault). With an OS, however, as pointed out in a report from researcher iSuppli Sunday, "Google is ringing the bell for the main event."

That Chrome OS is an open-source system is a mixed blessing for Linux lovers, who have long sought to cut into Microsoft's substantial market share but have had a tough time moving beyond the province of the tech savvy (read: consumers and Linux just don't match up). Google Chrome OS stands to box out other flavors of Linux -- especially those headed for netbooks -- but also lends some much needed, consumer-friendly name recognition to the open-source OS space.

"The small penetration of Linux in netbooks is not due to any technical shortcomings," wrote Matthew Wilkins, iSuppli's principal analyst for compute platforms research, in a research note. "Rather, the OS has suffered from the fact that there is not one Linux brand name that is capable of taking on the strength of the Microsoft trademark in the PC market."

"Because the vast majority of people who buy netbooks are consumers, who do not have a high degree of knowledge of the key players in the OS market, they are going with the names that they know," Watkins added. "And in PCs, that name is Microsoft. For Google to be successful, it needs to promote and position its brand so that non-tech-savvy consumers will be comfortable buying a netbook running its operating system rather than one from Microsoft. This will be a major challenge."

Chrome, as a Web-based OS, is Google's suggestion of how to meet that challenge, and its hope that the considerable muscle behind the Google brand extends to more than search engine traffic alone.