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

the Internet instead of one’s PC. Consumers will welcome Google’s challenge to Microsoft’s USP; such competition benefits them and the market. But before the offensive, Google needs to protect its back.