Google operation system

Chris Sorensen Business Reporter
Google Inc. is building a computer operating system in a move that could place the search engine giant in direct competition with the industry's other heavyweight, Microsoft Corp.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Google said late Tuesday that it is working on a new open-source operating system that is an extension of its Google Chrome Web browser.

"It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be," Sundar Pichai, Google's vice-president of product management, in a blog posting.

The Google Chrome OS will be "lightweight" and will be initially targeting netbooks, lower cost laptops that are becoming increasingly popular. The operating system will focus on "speed, simplicity and security" and is expected to be available by the second half of 2010, Google said.
The move could be viewed as an effort to go after the bread and butter of Microsoft's business, which is built around its widely used Windows operating system.

Over the past several years, Google has been attempting to extend its core business beyond search engine technology with offerings include Gmail and Google Docs, a suite of computer programs that's meant to provide an alternative to Microsoft's word processing, spreadsheet and calendar applications.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has been trying to garner a bigger slice of the search engine market, having recently launched a revamped version of its search technology under the name Bing.

Bilibala comments:
I used Google's software (online word and excel), not everything is convertable from microsoft's application, so whether Google's operating system will be a plus to the company is uncertain.