Something very big from Google

Google have announced their Chrome OS. Any new operating system is pretty big news as tech news goes. Google seem to have their sights set on Microsoft Windows and maybe they are on to something. Putting aside the various debates about global corporate strangleholds there is a lot of merit in the Google philosophy of small and lightweight systems that push as much as possible through the internet. Perhaps we are past the stage where we need a

Cloud computing has a lot going for it and now that netbooks are taking off there are lots of advantages to running data and applications online as the power of the machines in use is actually going against Moore's Law.

I use two PC systems - no Mac's here. One a pretty powerful Vaio R series desktop and the other a super lightweight Sony Vaio T series, though both are now five years old so have quite modest specifications when put alongside their modern counterparts. Even a £150 netbook has a faster processor than my baby laptop!

So having a poverty spec' system that does a perfectly good job I appreciate small and unobtrusive programs so I'll be interested to see what Google are up to. I sense now that since PC's became mainstream consumer white goods rather than the preserve of geeks, if Google gets this right they will make themselves very popular with people who don't care how it works, just so long as it does.

If the Chrome OS is going to be big it will need to be very small indeed.