Chrome Goes Non-Beta Jan 2009, OEM Option On New PCs?

Author: Rees | Date: November 22, 2008

In an interview with The Times, Sundar Pichai, Google’s VP of Product Management, has announced that a final release of Google Chrome should be expected in January, bucking the trend of Google’s love for all things perpetually-in-beta.

What’s more interesting is that Google are considering distribution deals with computer manufacturers (known as OEMs or Original Equipment Manufacturers) to have the browser preinstalled on their machines. As it’s generally considered that this is the only reason for IE’s huge marketshare, that should mean some interesting times ahead for Microsoft, and of course Google themselves.

In another interesting twist Google have also announced that the much-anticipated “official” Linux and Mac OS X versions of the browser should be available around the same time. Considering that this is pretty much the main reason that I’m sticking with Firefox (and the distinct lack of Firefox’s huge library of plugins), perhaps even I’ll be sipping the Chrome Kool-Aid before next year is out.

Perhaps.

2 Comments »

Comment by FormerMSemployee

2008-11-22 18:24:09

Please create a Virtual Downloadable OS that can be installed on any computer with ones personal Settings. like a Remote Desktop. But instead have it replace Windows/Vista. I’m sick of Microsoft products.
Please Google,.. create an Operating System to replace Windows/VISTA, yet is compatible with all Hardware/peripherals. You can do it, please start now.

Thank you,

loyal customer.

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Comment by Rees

2008-11-22 18:48:35

You mean like something that can be booted from a USB flash drive? I guess they could do that, and have some kind of online storage that people can access for all their files (gmail gives about 7GB these days, which is a lot if you’re just talking about documents)..?

If it was a virtual OS that you connected to via remote desktop, you wouldn’t need it to be compatible with your hardware as the underlying OS would handle all of that – you’d still need a host OS to run it on after all.

Interesting idea. They could even build on Android and create their own Linux-based desktop OS from scratch. It seems unlikely though, as Google seem to be all about device-independent internet-based services which kind of contradict the idea of putting out their own proprietay OS.

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