Outspoken Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is known for causing controversy with some of his statements, regardless of whether he's right or wrong, and he recently dismissed the Google Chrome OS.
“I will be respectful,” Ballmer said during a recent conference call. “Who knows what this thing is? To me, the Chrome OS thing is highly interesting. It won't happen for a year and a half and they already announced an operating system,” he said, regarding Google's Android mobile OS.
The late-night announcement of Chrome OS wasn't a shock to many analysts and journalists, but the actual thought of the OS is rather interesting. Is cloud computing popular enough where Chrome OS will be in high demand, or will it end up being a somewhat useless OS Google promotes heavily?
Android will eventually be released on netbooks, though Chrome OS is designed specifically for desktops connected to the Internet. Google obviously works in the cloud – and has seen great success – but it's unknown if a cloud-based OS will be able to woo users away from Windows, Linux, or Macs.
Unlike Windows or Mac, the Linux-based Chrome OS is open source and Google will welcome contributions from the community.
Despite what Ballmer said in the teleconference, it's clear Microsoft is taking Google's latest challenge very seriously. Google controls the majority of the search market, but Microsoft hopes to chip away at that advantage with its Bing search engine. Microsoft will rely on Windows – scheduled for release on Oct. 22 – to keep Google and its Chrome OS at bay.
Are you going to test out Chrome OS when it is released?
