This could be good news; this could be bad news, depending on where one stands vis-à-vis this clash of the Titans. That Google is developing its own operating system (Google Chrome OS) for personal computers is in any case big news; and it comes just months before Microsoft launches Windows 7. Google is set to strike what many industry watchers believe to be a terminal blow to Microsoft, the undisputed market leader for operating systems with almost 90 per cent of the market. Initially targeted at low-cost netbooks to be on sale

by mid-2010, Chrome OS will eventually target PCs. And that could be a paradigm shift for operating systems.

At the heart of it is a battle of generations, between business ideologies and technologies. General complaints associated with Windows are slowness, having to carry data around, needing to frequently re-boot — not surprising given that Windows was conceived in another era, as a pre-web operating system, and since its market domination

didn’t offer much comparison. Google however is viewed as a contemporary, eager to experiment and risk being wrong. A “natural extension” of the Google Chrome web browser, Chrome OS will run on an open-source licence; and its call-to-arms are: “Speed, simplicity and security”. It’s billed to be “fast and lightweight, to start up and get you on to the web in a few seconds”. In short, it should be the first genuinely post-web operating system.

Nevertheless, an operating system and a web browser aren’t the same in terms of function, complexity and detail. Google’s Achilles heel is security and privacy — the flipside of its worldview that software and personal data should reside on

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