Google Chrome OS vs My Dog Buddy

While the prospect of a Google Chrome operating system is certainly interesting, let's not get ahead of ourselves and declare the OS war officially ignited or Google's newest operating system a "Windows killer".

After all, much of the same thing was said about Google Chrome (the browser) when it was launched. It was "re-igniting the browser wars" and an "Internet Explorer-killer". Google Chrome has been out just over ten months now and holds a whopping 1.74% of the browser market. Not exactly an IE-killer. If a web browser is re-igniting the browser war, it is Firefox, whose market share has increased by almost 2% to 22.39% since Chrome's release.

Let's make no mistake about it, the threat to Microsoft Windows comes from cloud computing, not Google Chrome OS. Even without Google throwing their hat into the ring, Microsoft is in a fight against the platform independence that cloud computing delivers. This fight will include Linux-based operating systems with a smaller footprint built to run as more of a WebOS, smartphones that are increasingly being used for productivity, and let's not forget Apple, who may very well launch a tablet PC based on the iPhone operating system.

All of this is due to the platform independence we are gaining through the web. And hopefully, Google Chrome OS will become the flagship product of that movement. But let's not mistake it for the instigator of this fight, because it has been brewing for a while now.