I have been watching the discussion about the Google Chrome OS with great interest. Since there hadn't been much news on the OS in the past year I thought maybe that Google had decided to focus more on Android and continue to develop Chrome as only a web browser. But then Google launched their Chrome OS beta by sending out about 60,000 laptops loaded up with Chrome to lucky people around the globe. The hardware that is being sent out is certainly nothing to write home about. The specs are a little better than those of a netbook with an Intel Atom processor and 2GB of RAM and a 12 inch LCD display. Google is not calling it a netbook though. They prefer the term notebook.

From afar it looks to me like there are many interesting contradictions that the Chrome notebook experience has to offer. The battery life of the machine is stupendous, offering 8 hours (or more) on a full charge. There's also a ridiculously fast 10 second booting time. And it's light, weighing under 4 pounds. These attributes remind me of the 13 inch Macbook Air. There's also a 16GB solid state drive for storage but no real access to a local file system, an app store for new applications, and 3G data access for connectivity when Wifi is not available. This reminds me of an iPad. Finally, I've read stories about poor performance while running Adobe Flash. That reminds me of my old Dell Mini 10 netbook. So what do you get when you cross the efficiency of the Macbook Air with the iPad file system and netbook-level performance? Nothing too exciting, except for the software. Then again this is "reference" hardware and real machines are expected to be for sale early in 2011. I assume that the hardware manufacturers and Google will be listening intently to the opinions of their beta testers. 

One thing I have been asking myself is could (or would) I use such a device? What purpose would it serve? How would I have to change the way I work in order to enjoy the experience? First of all there would have to be a working SD card drive on the device. One of the biggest gripes about the iPad had been the need for a camera connection kit that costs extra. Whatever the hit to the weight of the case (it shouldn't be much)  they need to have that present. Access to the file system is also going to be a must have as well. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, and the space can be limited, but something is needed to allow a person to save and/or upload some files from time-to-time. Offline access to Google Docs and Gmail are critical as well. I've heard that this is coming in early 2011. Even with these additions you're still getting a pretty bare-bones system so I would expect the price to match. I think that the forthcoming hardware must price under $500 (which still may be too high) in order for consumers to consider adopting the machine. I'm basing this expectation on the fact that the Chrome notebook will be competing against the 2nd generation iPad and many first generation Android tablets. 

For the moment Google is positioning the hardware as a business machine which means that the SD card option won't be as important. But I think that the other improvements I mentioned will be important either way. Especially because the iPad is now gaining traction as a business device as well. In spite of the notoriety of the CR-48 all signs point to a very tough road for the Chrome OS notebook. They have significant competitors including feature rich and reasonably priced Windows 7 notebooks (like the Samsung QX410), and Apple and Android (oh the irony) tablets. Google may end up trying to get themselves an edge by pitching Chrome notebooks to enterprise users while also selling them on Google Apps.

The Chrome software is another story. From what I've read the browser is the software so if you've used Google Chrome lately you're very familiar with the experience. I've been using Chrome as my primary browser for several months and you really can't beat the speed of the browser. There are also many more extensions available for Chrome than there were in early 2010 and that has made the transition from Firefox much easier. So I think that as a software platform alone Chrome is a big winner so far. The browser has been taking market share from the other major browsers and developers are creating extensions, which I guess will now be called apps since Chrome has launched their app store. Unfortunately many of the apps appear to be just websites that you could access and use with another browser. if that trend continues it will be good for all web users and not very good for Google since it will remove the necessity to download Chrome. it also wouldn't be good for Apple which is counting on lots of revenue from paid apps that are proprietary to iOS. 

So in short I think that Google has great browser possibilities and questionable operating system possibilities with Chrome. Part of the problem is due to the success of Android, which will show up on many a tablet next year. The timing of the Chrome OS launch makes me wonder if the release of the hardware is meant to cause Apple and Microsoft to change direction. Or perhaps it's a ploy to encourage developers to build web apps instead of proprietary apps for iOS devices. We'll know in a few months when the Chrome OS hardware launches. Until then I recommend making Google Chrome your default browser if you want to get the Chrome OS experience.