An update on Chrome, the Web Store and Chrome OS
On the Chrome team, we're constantly amazed by the speed of innovation on the web. We designed Chrome to make the web shine, and we hope our upcoming efforts will help support this vibrant ecosystem even more.
Context & Ripple Effects
Two years after Google pitched Chrome as something bigger than a browser — its 'bright and shiny future' memo in December 2008 — the project has grown into all three layers at once: the browser itself, a Web Store for installable web apps, and Chrome OS running on dedicated hardware. The speed-focused beta work that began with the March 2009 beta release now anchors the browser side of today's announcement.
The rollout is substantial enough that it traveled widely on day one: Engadget got hands on the Cr-48, DigiTimes reports Inventec shipping 60,000 Chrome OS netbooks to Google, VentureBeat frames a mid-2011 consumer launch behind a pilot program, and GigaOM declares 'the network computer arrives.' Not everyone buys it — Silicon Alley Insider's take is that hardware support, specifically drivers, is where Chrome OS will fail, and Engadget notes Google says these machines won't dual-boot with Windows.
First-order effects
- Developers get a direct distribution and payments channel through the Chrome Web Store, making installable web apps a sellable product rather than bookmarked pages.
- Pilot testers receive the unbranded, Inventec-built Cr-48 hardware with live customer support — but with Google confirming no Windows dual-boot, the machine is browser-only by design.
Second-order effects
- PC makers evaluating Chrome OS netbooks must weigh a browser-only SKU against established Windows machines, with hardware driver support — Silicon Alley Insider's stated failure point — deciding whether the mid-2011 consumer launch holds.
- Web app developers now have a storefront rivaling native-software distribution, pressuring platform owners whose app economics depend on the desktop OS layer.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the operating system commoditizes into a boot loader for a browser, and control over computing shifts toward whoever owns the browser and its app storefront.
- Hardware compatibility, not software capability, becomes the decisive gate for thin-client machines reaching mainstream buyers — the same objection raised against the network computer for decades.
The trend: Personal computing is drifting toward the browser as the application platform, with Chrome OS testing whether an operating system can be little more than a fast path to the web.