Yesterday, Google announced its intentions to build a complete operating system under the Chrome brand. The Chrome OS is positioned as an "open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks."
There's been lots of speculation around Google's motivations here. I even heard a newscaster on Chicago local radio today say that it was direct retaliation for Microsoft's launch of "the Bing Internet Search Engine."
Allow me to clear up any confusion. Google's main reason for launching an OS is to increase the number of search queries performed and, in turn, boost its revenue from search advertising.
Per Google, the "Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web." Essentially it's designed to get people online faster and easier. This in turn, will stimulate more queries as 80% of all internet activity begins with a search (per Harris Interactive).
Personally, I think the Chrome OS is more of a response to Facebook's ambitions to create a walled-garden Internet. The only way Google can penetrate users on Facebook (where search is powered by Bing) is to get them before they go to Facebook (eg, when they load up their computer thru an OS), around Facebook (via web browser or toolbar), or after they're done with Facebook (via Gmail, Docs, Spreadsheets, etc.)
The Google announcement proclaims, "We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better.... And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet."
Methinks if Google was being totally transparent it would tack "and clicking on search advertising" to the end of that statement.
For that matter, if Google was being totally transparent it would update its mission statement to "make money from advertising by organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful. "
The next step from here, of course, is for Google to give away free netbooks pre-loaded with the Chrome OS. But one announcement at a time.
2 comments:
this is great news. my friend was telling me google had an OS for netbooks and I was like "WTF?"
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