Last night, Google announced that it will release an open-source, lightweight operating system called Chrome Operating System, initially for netbooks. The 
company says it is talking to multiple partners and expects consumers will be able to purchase netbooks running Chrome OS in the second half of next year.
In a post on the Official Google Blog, Sundar Pichai, VP product management and Linus Upson, engineering director wrote:
Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.
The new project is separate from Android, although there’s bound to be platforms where the two will overlap, the two wrote. In a not-so-subtle blast at Microsoft, they concluded:
We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. 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.
Source: Introducing the Google Chrome OS
