Is Google’s Chrome OS Waiting for a Strong ARM?
Google’s new open source Chrome operating system won’t be officially available until dedicated devices hit the market next year. Developers have tinkered with the code, which was released last week, to make a version of the OS that can be downloaded and installed on existing machines, but Chrome’s true colors — and speed — won’t be evident, maintains Google.
It’s not every brand new operating system that gets open sourced a year before it hits the retail shelves. Then again, Chrome OS isn’t just any OS, and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) isn’t just any company.
Indeed, that’s just what Google did last week, making its brand new Chrome OS freely available for download by developers far and wide. Devices running the new operating system, on the other hand, are not expected until the fourth quarter of next year.
“We are doing this early, a year before Google Chrome OS will be ready for users, because we are eager to engage with partners, the open source community and developers,” wrote Caesar Sengupta, Google’s group product manager, and Matt Papakipos, engineering director, on the Official Google Blog.
“As with the Google Chrome browser, development will be done in the open from this point on,” they explained. “This means the code is free, accessible to anyone and open for contributions.”
Optimized Hardware
It may seem counterintuitive to release the free code first and then expect to sell it running on actual devices a year later, when — theoretically, at least — it could have been run on existing hardware in the meantime.
Yet the hardware that’s developed between now and then will make all the difference, Eitan Bencuya, a Google spokesperson, told LinuxInsider.
“The usage case where Chrome OS really shines is when it’s combined with hardware that takes advantage of it,” Bencuya explained.
Fast Hardware
Speed, for example, is one of the operating system’s defining characteristics, he pointed out.
Accordingly, unnecessary processes are being removed, operations are being optimized, and as many things will run in parallel as possible in the new operating system.
Those changes will also dig down into the hardware level.
“Our obsession with speed goes all the way down to the metal,” Sengupta and Papakipos explained. “We are specifying reference hardware components to create the fastest experience for Google Chrome OS.”
