Google has started lifting the veil on its planned Chrome operating system  , but it says that computers powered by the software will not be available for a year.
The new operating system, which is closely tied to Google's Web browser, also named Chrome, is seen as a potential challenge to Microsoft , whose Windows software powers the majority of personal computers.
But with the Chrome operating system, Google is not trying to build a better version of Windows. Instead, it is aiming to shift users toward its vision of "cloud computing ," a model in which programs are not installed on a PC but rather are used over the Internet and accessed through a Web browser. In Google's approach, a user's data would also reside on servers across the Internet, rather than on the user's PC.
Most PC users already rely on cloud computing, using their Internet browsers to access items like e-mail, photo albums and digital maps.
"Hundreds of millions of users are living on the cloud," said Sundar Pichai, a vice president for product management at Google in charge of Chrome. Every program that users have on their PCs today, Mr. Pichai said, will soon be available as a Web application. "The trend is very, very clear," he said.
While Microsoft and others say they believe that cloud-based programs will coexist with traditional PC software, Google has often said that Web applications will replace all desktop software, another area that Microsoft dominates. Machines running the Chrome operating system, which initially will be limited to lightweight, portable computers known as netbooks, will not run any desktop applications other than the Chrome browser.
But even Mr. Pichai said that devices with the Chrome operating system were likely to be used, at least at first, as a complement to users' more powerful computers at home.
Analysts said that the Chrome operating system could pose a challenge to Microsoft over the long term but that Microsoft was not sitting still.
"Chrome OS moves the playing field to the cloud," said Ray Valdes, an analyst at Gartner. "But Microsoft is a multifaceted company. They have a systematic effort to put a lot of their technology portfolio in the cloud as well." (continued...)
© 2010 International Herald Tribune under contract with MarketWatch. All rights reserved.
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