Google announced on July 7, 2009 that they will be releasing a new browser-based ( Google Chrome ) OS sometime in 2010 ( according to them, it will be in netbooks by the second half of the same year ). Google Chrome OS will be open sourced this year, so developers who will be working on it once it is in private beta, could give their hands-on experience on the current state of the OS at that point. According to the announcement, Chrome OS will be a light operating system, with a ( Google developed ) windowing system and the Chrome browser as the user facing application. Many are really excited with the announcement, but there is also a large camp who are really skeptical of how impactful this new OS will be. The hype around the new operating system is pretty strong, but the lack of information about the mysterious product maybe the only cause for this. Google is not alone in pursuing a web-centric OS, with Crunchpad and Intel's Moblin also having the same goals - to make machines that rely more on the network than on traditional desktop apps.
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