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In a move which should surprise no one, Google has announced that it is finally making it’s play to become the Operating System of choice for Cloud Computing and netbooks with Chrome OS.

The following is part of a press release that came out of Google a few hours ago.

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 — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.

Personally I think this sounds like a great dual boot option for netbooks or other mobile PCs. The Chrome OS could be used when cloud computing or as an “instant on” option while another OS such as Windows or OS X is used when needed. I would have serious reservations however about running ONLY Chrome OS. While I don’t think Chrome OS will drive XP or Windows 7 off of netbooks it may be another nail in the coffin for Linux distros on netbooks, replacing such systems as Ubuntu NBR or Moblin.

The only real surprise here is I think a lot of people (including many netbook vendors) were expecting Google to beef up Android as a PC OS, rather then use Chrome. However, Google has been saying for a long time that Operating Systems had become antiquated and in the future, the browser itself would be the only OS needed. Time to see if they were right.

Read the full press release HERE.