I'm a little late posting this (yesterday's news really) but Google has officially announced that they plan to release a Chrome based OS. Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Google plans to open-source its code later this year and offer Google powered netbooks in 2010. Company officials confirmed that Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips. Google is currently working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year bundled with the new Chrome OS.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

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.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple