And the development project, much sought and speculated over for years now, has been hiding in plain sight the whole time: Google's Chrome web browser project.

Since Google has done little more than announce the operating system so far, all the speculation over who this is aimed at and whether or not it is going to kill them seems a little premature. But unlike most product announcements, we have a little more to go on with this one, since Chrome itself has been in the wild (albeit in sometimes shakey beta form) for months now. The operating system, from both Google's brief description of it and judging from the ethos of the project, is little more than a launch pad for the browser. "Speed, simplicity and security" are what Google promises to offer and that's exactly what Chrome itself is built for. Observers might get a pretty good advance read on what Google OS represents and how well it is put together by judging Chrome first. The Linux kernel that the company plans to use to prop up the browser is well-tested and reliable, so no surprises are likely on that front... just as Google has been saying, it really is all about the browser in this case.

At least half the posts I've read on this go on about how it's a swing of some sort at Microsoft, which is pretty much the same thing that happened when Chrome itself was released. I'll reiterate my own view on the matter, however, which is that Google doesn't really care (specifically) about Microsoft at all: the two companies are not really in competition. What is in competition are two differing views of the future of computing. Google's view is of cloud-based applications and services, with lightweight, fail-proof devices used for access. While I don't think they ever really wanted to be in the market of providing those devices, their expertise and business being in cloud development, I think they realized that no one else was making or had a vested interest in making such devices. Thus, Android, Chrome, and now Chrome OS... software that no one else was going to design which will provide the safest, fastest, easiest access to cloud services (many of which Google provides) without trying to load up the client platform with extraneous bells and whistles. This fills a significant gap in the cloud computing ecosystem, and if Google succeeds, it is not so much a direct blow to Microsoft as it is an advancement of the cloud computing paradigm.

What does this mean to the CIO? For those on board with that paradigm already, it's good news... within a couple years, an off-the-shelf, ready-made platform for direct access to web-based applications that forward-looking corporations are already rolling out. Those CIOs have already been able to roll their own safe, reliable platforms for delivering these services, but at some administrative cost. Chrome OS should provide a standardized, reliable client-side platform running on commodity hardware, reducing support costs.

For CIOs still stuck with or in the thick client paradigm, this doesn't matter much either way. Heavy client application development may go away sooner if cloud demand increases as a result of Google's move, but it's not going away any time soon. Microsoft and its ilk will be happy to sell you whatever you want to run for the foreseeable future. Your only threat is the CFO catching wind of the cost saving and performance boosts your industry competitors are enjoying weaning themselves away from traditional delivery systems.