Google announces operating system to rival Windows
14:28 08 July 2009
Google has announced that it is launching an operating system (OS) for laptops set to rival Microsoft Windows.
The new technology by the internet giants will initially run on notebooks but aims to eventually power full size desktops which have been dominantly run by Microsoft for the last two decades.
The operating system will be run through Chrome, the company's nine-month-old web browser platform.
Chrome OS is being developed as a fast and lightweight operating system that will boot quickly and get users "onto the web in a few seconds".
Google said the new OS was a "natural extension" of Chrome and was an "attempt to re-think what operating systems should be".
A post on Google's website by Sundar Pichai, vice-president of Product Management, and engineering director, Linus Upson said: "We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web - searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends."
The firm also said it was "completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates".
Microsoft is set to release Windows 7 in the autumn later this year and it promises a "faster, simpler, easier' computing experience".
Regarding Google's plans, Rob Enderle, industry watcher and president of the Enderle Group, told the BBC: "This announcement is huge.
"This is the first time we have had a truly competitive OS on the market in years. This is potentially disruptive and is the first real attempt by anyone to go after Microsoft.
"Google is coming at this fresh and, because it is based on a set of services that reside on the web, it is the first really post-web operating system, designed from the ground up, and reconceived for a web world."
Chrome OS will be available with netbooks by the second half of 2010. Currently, Microsoft maintain around a 90% share of the market for operating systems.