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Wal-Mart will start selling a fully loaded laptop from Hewlett-Packard for a breakthrough price of US$298 on July 26, but it may have a caveat: The Windows Vista OS included with the machine may not qualify for a free upgrade to Windows 7.

The laptop — a Compaq Presario CQ60-419WM — has attracted attention because of its low promotional price and generous features, which include a large screen, fast processor and Windows Vista Home Basic OS.

But according to HP’s documents, users will not be able to upgrade the Vista Home Basic OS to Microsoft’s Windows 7. Vista has been panned for being sluggish and resource-hungry, while Windows 7, due for release on Oct. 22, has been praised by beta testers as faster and more resource-friendly.

HP is not providing free upgrades (PDF document) from Vista Home Basic to Windows 7, according to HP’s Windows 7 upgrade option program. Only PCs with Vista Home Premium, Vista Business or Vista Ultimate qualify for the upgrade.

Microsoft has listed an upgrade path from Vista Home Basic to multiple versions of Windows 7, but HP isn’t offering those options. That means customers who want Windows 7 might have to buy a version of Windows 7, priced starting at $120, off the shelves.

HP did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Wal-Mart did not immediately comment on whether it had plans in place to provide free Windows 7 upgrades.

Hewlett-Packard said in June it would offer free upgrades to Windows 7 for customers who buy qualifying PCs pre-installed with certain editions of Vista in the U.S. and Canada. Customers need to go to HP’s Windows 7 upgrade Web site to check upgrade eligibility. Qualifying customers will receive Windows 7 upgrade disks starting Oct. 22, when the new OS becomes generally available.

Companies including Lenovo and Dell are also offering free upgrades.

Mainstream laptops under $300 are rare, and for such a low price, the Presario laptop is packed with features. A free upgrade to Windows 7 might have given additional impetus for users to buy it.

The laptop should give better graphics and application performance than netbooks, which are generally less powerful systems with smaller screens and keyboards.

Wal-Mart is expecting a rush of customers and it could run out of stock quickly. “We expect this one will be quite popular,” a Wal-Mart employee wrote in its blog entry announcing the offer.

The worst effects of the economic slowdown may be over for Asia’s PC market, but Dell is struggling to keep up.

Second-quarter PC shipments in the Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, rose 8 percent over the same period last year, driven higher by stronger demand from consumers, IDC reported, citing preliminary estimates. The latest numbers end a two-quarter slump that saw shipments contract amid the tough economic environment.

On a consecutive basis, shipments rose 19 percent over the previous quarter, it said.

The increase in overall PC shipments during the second-quarter was good news for top PC vendors, with one noticeable exception: Dell’s PC shipments remained flat, growing just 0.3 percent compared to the second quarter of 2008.

Corporate sales are a major component of Dell’s business in Asia, and demand for PCs from Asian businesses remains weak. “Weak corporate sales are part of what’s hurting them,” said Bryan Ma, director of personal systems research at IDC Asia-Pacific, noting that the PC maker is in the midst of a reorganization that aims to improve its competitiveness.

While Dell is unlikely to see a sharp increase in Asian PC shipments before a recovery in demand for PCs from business, the company is trying to appeal more to consumers and has seen some success in this regard. “Dell’s consumer team has made progress,” Ma said.

However, the consumer team’s progress wasn’t enough to keep pace with rivals. Dell’s biggest competitors, which all have a stronger presence in the consumer PC market, saw healthy increases in the number of units they shipped during the second quarter.

IDC’s preliminary data showed top-ranked Lenovo’s shipments rose 7.3 percent, while HP, which is the second-largest PC vendor in Asia, saw an increase of 25.1 percent. Dell managed to hold onto its spot as the third-largest PC maker, but Acer and China’s Founder Group closed the gap, with unit growth of 12 percent and 12.3 percent, respectively.

The jump in Acer’s shipments bring the Taiwanese PC vendor closer to overtaking Dell as Asia’s third-largest PC maker.

“They are definitely within striking distance,” Ma said.

The worst effects of the economic slowdown may be over for Asia’s PC market, but Dell is struggling to keep up.

Second-quarter PC shipments in the Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, rose 8 percent over the same period last year, driven higher by stronger demand from consumers, IDC reported, citing preliminary estimates. The latest numbers end a two-quarter slump that saw shipments contract amid the tough economic environment.

On a consecutive basis, shipments rose 19 percent over the previous quarter, it said.

The increase in overall PC shipments during the second-quarter was good news for top PC vendors, with one noticeable exception: Dell’s PC shipments remained flat, growing just 0.3 percent compared to the second quarter of 2008.

Corporate sales are a major component of Dell’s business in Asia, and demand for PCs from Asian businesses remains weak. “Weak corporate sales are part of what’s hurting them,” said Bryan Ma, director of personal systems research at IDC Asia-Pacific, noting that the PC maker is in the midst of a reorganization that aims to improve its competitiveness.

While Dell is unlikely to see a sharp increase in Asian PC shipments before a recovery in demand for PCs from business, the company is trying to appeal more to consumers and has seen some success in this regard. “Dell’s consumer team has made progress,” Ma said.

However, the consumer team’s progress wasn’t enough to keep pace with rivals. Dell’s biggest competitors, which all have a stronger presence in the consumer PC market, saw healthy increases in the number of units they shipped during the second quarter.

IDC’s preliminary data showed top-ranked Lenovo’s shipments rose 7.3 percent, while HP, which is the second-largest PC vendor in Asia, saw an increase of 25.1 percent. Dell managed to hold onto its spot as the third-largest PC maker, but Acer and China’s Founder Group closed the gap, with unit growth of 12 percent and 12.3 percent, respectively.

The jump in Acer’s shipments bring the Taiwanese PC vendor closer to overtaking Dell as Asia’s third-largest PC maker.

“They are definitely within striking distance,” Ma said.

PC sales in India were down 7 percent compared to the previous fiscal year, as a result of the economic downturn in the country, according to a survey by a trade body.Sales in the Indian fiscal year to March 31 were 6.8 million units, the Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (MAIT) said on Tuesday. While desktop sales declined by 4 percent, the highest drop of 17 percent was in sales of notebook computers. In the previous year, notebook computer sales were up 114 percent, according to MAIT.About 5.3 million desktops were sold in the year, with notebook computers, including netbooks, accounting for 1.51 million units. The netbook, a new category of low-cost notebook computers, caught the fancy of consumers, MAIT said. Sales of netbooks crossed 70,000 in the fiscal year.MAIT is now forecasting growth of 7 percent to over 7.3 million units in the fiscal year to March 31, 2010. A revival in the market was already evident in the January to March quarter, MAIT said.Growth by 7 percent in the current fiscal year may not reflect a strong rebound in the market, because there were two bad quarters in the last fiscal year, according to some analysts.A return to strong double-digit growth is likely only in the third quarter of the next calendar year, Kapil Dev Singh, country manager at research firm IDC India said on Wednesday.

Stronger PC demand from consumers in China and Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, gave Intel’s Asian business a boost during the second quarter, the company said Wednesday.

“It reflects the strength in Asia relative to the rest of the world, particularly China and Southeast Asia. Both of them look pretty good in terms of PC consumption,” said Navin Shenoy, vice president of Intel’s sales and marketing group and general manager of the company’s Asia-Pacific operations.

Intel reported second-quarter revenue in Asia of US$4.4 billion, down 8 percent from $4.8 billion during the same period last year. But revenue from the region was up 21 percent over the first quarter of this year, a sequential increase of $762 million. That helped to raise the percentage of Intel’s second-quarter revenue that came from Asia to 55 percent, from 51 percent last year.

Overall, Intel reported a net loss for the period of $398 million on worldwide revenue of $8 billion. The company’s results were dragged into the red by a one-time $1.4 billion antitrust fine levied by the European Commission in May.

While Asian sales outperformed demand from other geographical regions, not all of the chips sold in Asia end up in the hands of Asian users. Asia is home to most of the world’s largest computer hardware makers, and Intel chips sold in Asia are often used to manufacture computers that are shipped to customers in other parts of the world. Still, demand for computers from Asian consumers was relatively strong during the second quarter.

“As I look around the region, I see relatively stronger PC sales in China and Southeast Asia than in other parts of the world,” Shenoy said, adding that consumer PC sales in these markets are also higher than they were during the same period last year.

“Indonesia is probably the strongest out of all the countries in Southeast Asia,” he said, adding that all of the countries in that part of Asia are seeing growing demand for PCs from consumers.

Looking ahead, Shenoy expects Asian PC sales to rise higher during the third quarter, but stopped short of declaring a recovery.

“Our forecast for the third quarter is for it to be seasonally up on the second quarter. That reflects a return to normal seasonal patterns, but that’s as far as I would go at this point,” Shenoy said.

Last month, most of Apple’s MacBooks were upgraded with SD card slots. The most popular 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros both now have card readers. Apple even explains how to build a bootable SD card. Why on earth would Apple go through the trouble of explaining how to create a boot disk from an SD card? That seems way out in left field. They never did that for USB key drives.

I think there is more to it than that. Apple doesn’t just do things like SD cards. “You can just throw in a USB SD card reader” had been the mantra up until this point. Apple didn’t need to bother itself with these little things.
Now, I think things have changed. The SD card has become part of Apple’s MacBook strategy. It should be arriving on the MacBook Air and the regular MacBook at the next updates…and it might even take the place of the DVD drive on the next MacBook.

That’s right, I think the SD card is going to replace the DVD drive on most of Apple’s laptops going forward. If you really need a DVD, you’ll be able to buy an external USB Superdrive - but that option will mostly be a safety net.

Remember when Apple killed the floppy with the iMac? This will be the same thing. You could buy external floppy but how many of you really did?

Think about it. What would you rather have on your laptop? An easily rewritable 32GB SD card the size of a postage stamp that can hold about the same amount of data as 8 DVDs or a big spinning disk that can scratch easily and takes up about 1/4th of the internal usable area in your laptop?

It is a no-brainer; optical is over.

With compression much better than antiquated DVDs, a full-length, DVD-quality movie can fit on a 1GB SD card, with much room to spare. SD cards cost about $2/GB. DVDs are cheaper, but cost really isn’t an issue.

Backing up to an SD card is much better than trying to deal with DVDs. You can even use Time Machine with SD. 8GB DVDs won’t hold most people’s photo albums. However, a 32GB SD card should be able to knock out the casual user’s home directory.

Even BluRay movies can largely fit on today’s SD cards. Tomorrow’s will be much bigger (though Apple hasn’t announced support for those yet - the max is 32GB).

And that’s before you consider that Apple wants you downloading your HD movies from iTunes rather than buying physical media. Apple is also pushing packaging to ever smaller sizes. SD cards are much more durable than DVDs and are so small they can be swallowed.

So, if we are no longer burdened with big optical drives in our laptops, what are we going to do with all of that space?

I think a 15-inch MacBook Air would certainly be an entertaining idea. If you look at the space in a 15-inch laptop, a huge chunk is taken up by the DVD.

I also like the idea of having more than one SSD/HDD slot in the laptop. Perhaps a small, speedy 1.8 inch SSD drive for the OS/settings/applications and a huge 500GB HDD for media? That sounds about right to me.

There will always be those who cling to their old technology. How will you install software? (Heard of this thing called the App Store?) How will you install the OS? Remember, above, Apple showed us how to build a boot disk from the SD card. That probably comes from experience.

People will complain that they can’t watch their DVD collection. What are they going to do with all of their old DVDs? (Get HandBrake).

Remember how indispensable the floppy was?

Much of the discussion around Google’s new PC operating system has focused on a looming battle with Windows, but the biggest losers could be other Linux OSes that have been enjoying some moderate success on netbooks, industry analysts said.

Google announced late Tuesday that it is developing the Chrome OS, a lightweight operating system based on Linux and geared for people who do much of their computing on the Web. The software will eventually run on PCs, but before that it will appear first in netbooks in the second half of 2010, Google says.

Several Linux-based OSes for netbooks are available today, including Canonical’s Ubuntu Netbook Remix, GoodOS’s gOS 3.1 Gadgets, and Moblin 2.0 beta, which is backed by Intel.

The Linux distributions provide easy access to Web applications from the home screen and are designed to boot up quickly. Netbooks, which initially were too small and low-cost to run a full-fledged Windows OS, provided an opportunity for Linux to establish itself in personal computers, an area where it struggled for years to achieve a mainstream role.

But just when some Linux distributions seemed to be gaining a foothold, Google may soon curtail their success. The strength of its brand, and its reputation as a company that builds sleek and easy-to-use products, means it could steamroll over the other Linux candidates, said Joshua Martin, senior analyst at the Yankee Group.

Consumers will be drawn to a brand they recognize and that they associate with efficient online services, rather than to lesser-known names like Ubuntu and Moblin, Martin said. Google’s reputation for creating popular online services may also encourage PC makers to adopt the OS in netbooks, he said.

Other Linux distributions still haven’t been widely successful in netbooks, setting the bar low for Google’s Chrome OS to succeed, said Al Gillen, program vice president at IDC.

“With consumers, who are less likely to be concerned about track record and commercial support, Google Chrome OS could do better than other distros,” Gillen said.

There is also a high level of fragmentation in the netbook market, with multiple versions of Linux installed on different machines, a weakness that Google could exploit.

Ultimately, however, end-users will decide whether the Google OS will succeed. Linux-based netbooks have seen slow adoption, with many consumers preferring the familiarity of Windows. Over the past few quarters, around 90 percent of netbooks in mature markets, and as many as 70 percent in developing countries, have shipped with Windows, according to Gartner.

A battle will take place among Chrome and the other Linux distributions, but together they could also create a dent in Microsoft’s Windows franchise. Chrome could help to give Linux more recognition on the desktop, creating an easier path for other distributions, according to some Linux providers.

ZaReason, a small systems builder based in Berkeley, California, is already considering offering the Chrome OS on its PCs, partly because Google has a good track record in developing open-source applications, wrote Cathy Malmrose, CEO of ZaReason, in an e-mail. Today ZaReason offers a choice of Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, with its desktops and laptops.

“As long as Google leaves the OS truly open (and not close it like TiVO does with their Linux), then ZaReason would definitely consider offering it as an option,” Malmrose wrote. “Features like a fast browser (Chrome) could be used elsewhere due to the freedoms granted by true open source software.”

The Chrome OS doesn’t necessarily give Linux more credibility, but it gives it more recognition, Malmrose said. The presence of a heavyweight like Google could apply the pressure needed for other Linux distributions to succeed, she said. “Any competition just makes everyone better. Each distribution will have its own focus, and customers will get to choose which suits them best,” Malmrose wrote.

Few details about the Chrome OS are available yet, and it is unclear what users can expect other than tight links to Web-based applications like Google Docs and Gmail.

Questions remain about what the user interface will look like or what sort of hardware driver support will be available. Until those questions are answered, some Linux vendors are taking a wait-and-see approach and using the time to draw the lines of a possible battle with Google.

Canonical, developer of the popular Ubuntu Linux, is trying to better integrate the Web with its OS, said Gerry Carr, chief of platform marketing at Canonical. It will soon start talking up the next version of Ubuntu, version 9.10, which is code-named Karmic Koala.

“We’re not going to stop because Google comes out with the OS,” Carr said. Linux distributions have suffered in the past from a lack of drivers for hardware, so the company is also focused on ensuring more hardware will work with its OS.

Intel said Moblin’s use could expand to include smartphones and set-top boxes. “I think it’s important to note that for nearly 25 years now, we’ve had a goal to ensure we offer the most choice of software, and that the software runs best on our chips. Nothing changes with Chrome et al,” Bill Kircos, an Intel spokesman, said via e-mail.

Chrome may eventually become a dominant Linux distribution but it will take time for Google to iron out the kinks, said David Liu, founder of Good OS, which develops the gOS Linux distribution.

“Creating a cool software product is a good thing, but enabling it on a hardware platform is another thing,” Liu said.

But in a nod to Chrome’s potential, Good OS is already thinking about developing services that could run on top of it, Liu said.

People are well-accustomed to Windows, however, and Microsoft has strong ties with PC makers and a strong distribution channel, he noted.

“People take a long time to adjust to something new,” he said. “OEMs will take their time. Developers will take their time.”

Americans love chrome on motorcycles and toasters, but will average consumers take a shine to the Google Chrome operating system? Google announced its lightweight Chrome computer operating system today and says consumers can expect it by the end of 2010. Google describes the operating system as lean and mean and perfect for small Internet-friendly devices that are both easy-to-use and transport — such as a netbook.

True, netbooks are very popular with consumers right now, but will they be in 2010 and can Google ride the netbooks’ coattails into the heart of consumers?
Google Chrome: A Nerd’s Dream Come True

My guess is that though bleeding-edge technology lovers and fanatics will think this is “cool” news, the average technology-hungry consumer will have more questions about this option than answers.

Innovation is a great thing, but the question isn’t about Google’s innovative spirit, it’s about what consumers want and need. After all, consumers don’t like too many confusing choices. Ever scratch your head in the laundry detergent aisle at the grocery store asking yourself “do we really need 30 different brands?”

Here’s what consumers want to know:

*What is Chrome? It’s a new operating system — the code the runs all the programs and hardware on a computer or device. Chrome is being built on top of the code that also runs the alternative Linux operating system. Linux is a free and competitive alternative to Windows.

*Why should I care? It will be another operating system to consider when buying a netbook. Your other options are buying a Netbook that runs Linux or Microsoft Windows.

*How are operating systems different? Like Fords, Chevrolets and Toyotas, these computer operating systems are built differently, have different features and some are more popular than others.

*So does the OS truly matter for me, the consumer? That is the million-dollar question.

So far, as netbooks have grown in popularity, it appears that consumers do apparently care which operating system powers their Netbooks, but not for the reasons you might think.

They don’t care whether it’s a Ford or a Honda engine under the hood. Many may not know how to tell a hard drive from a CPU fan or spark plug. But what consumers like is familiarity and comfort.
* So are they buying up Netbooks that run Linux because Linux is cool? No. Instead, consumers bought Linux-powered Netbooks initially because that was what the first wave of Netbooks ran to save money. But as Microsoft worked on a smaller, feature-laden version of its Windows operating system to power Netbooks, manufacturers began buying it cheaply and loading it on to their new Netbooks.
And what happened to the Netbook marketplace after Windows started appearing on Netbooks? Well, that’s when consumers saw the Windows label, which is familiar and friendly, and decided to buy the Windows versions because they already know how to use them and are familiar with them.
Since then, the Linux-powered Netbook market has fallen drastically, according to industry analysts, while Windows versions are today’s shiny chrome on a fancy Harley-Davidson. It gets consumers in the door and helps make the sale.
What consumers do care about, though, is whether Chrome or any other new operating system will run their favorite programs, like Apple’s iTunes or Microsoft Office. Those will be among the measures of success for Chrome or anything that follows it. We’ll have to wait to get those answers.
So what’s this all mean for Google? Well, wanting to be innovative is a great thing.

But this looks like a hard road that Google is about to enter. That’s not to say they shouldn’t do it.
The question is, what will you, the consumer, get out of it. Americans love chrome.

But will they love this Chrome? Let the polishing begin.

Stronger PC demand from consumers in China and Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, gave Intel’s Asian business a boost during the second quarter, the company said Wednesday.

“It reflects the strength in Asia relative to the rest of the world, particularly China and Southeast Asia. Both of them look pretty good in terms of PC consumption,” said Navin Shenoy, vice president of Intel’s sales and marketing group and general manager of the company’s Asia-Pacific operations.

Intel reported second-quarter revenue in Asia of US$4.4 billion, down 8 percent from $4.8 billion during the same period last year. But revenue from the region was up 21 percent over the first quarter of this year, a sequential increase of $762 million. That helped to raise the percentage of Intel’s second-quarter revenue that came from Asia to 55 percent, from 51 percent last year.

Overall, Intel reported a net loss for the period of $398 million on worldwide revenue of $8 billion. The company’s results were dragged into the red by a one-time $1.4 billion antitrust fine levied by the European Commission in May.

While Asian sales outperformed demand from other geographical regions, not all of the chips sold in Asia end up in the hands of Asian users. Asia is home to most of the world’s largest computer hardware makers, and Intel chips sold in Asia are often used to manufacture computers that are shipped to customers in other parts of the world. Still, demand for computers from Asian consumers was relatively strong during the second quarter.

“As I look around the region, I see relatively stronger PC sales in China and Southeast Asia than in other parts of the world,” Shenoy said, adding that consumer PC sales in these markets are also higher than they were during the same period last year.

“Indonesia is probably the strongest out of all the countries in Southeast Asia,” he said, adding that all of the countries in that part of Asia are seeing growing demand for PCs from consumers.

Looking ahead, Shenoy expects Asian PC sales to rise higher during the third quarter, but stopped short of declaring a recovery.

“Our forecast for the third quarter is for it to be seasonally up on the second quarter. That reflects a return to normal seasonal patterns, but that’s as far as I would go at this point,” Shenoy said.

When Google first launched its Chrome Web browser, many of us immediately saw Chrome as Google’s extension of an operating system. Now, that prophecy is fulfilled with news of Google’s plans to open-source the Chrome OS code later this year with view to have it available in the second half of 2010. But immediately, this raises fundamental questions about what, exactly, defines an operating system, and what will distinguish Android, the open-source mobile OS spearheaded by Google, from Chrome OS.

I can’t help but wonder if we’ll look back on this news and think of it as the start of the next Great OS Wars. Google says its goal is to improve the user experience with computers — and clearly, that’s possible given the laundry list of annoyances with today’s PC-based experience. Mobile is driving innovation, too: The iPhone, Android, and WebOS mobile OS experiences have already shown us the potential when hardware integrates with elegant and well-designed software. While Microsoft Windows has competition in Apple’s Mac OSX and Linux, the truth is that Windows has really been competing against itself. Sure, Mac OS X’s evolution has put pressure on Microsoft, but PC users have routinely turned to either Windows XP or Windows Vista (reviled though it may be) for their computing needs. Consider the netbook world: Mediocre Linux distributions installed on early netbooks had difficulty selling, because shoppers wanted the Windows environment on their netbook, not some merely functional, Linux-based Windows wannabe.

Fast forward to the introduction of Android. The Linux-based Android debuted just a few months after Apple introduced its sharp iPhone OS 2.0 with App Store support. And mobile OSes have been the hot topic ever since: When we most recently examined the mobile OS landscape, we noted that Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 edged out Palm’s WebOS and Google’s Android — for now. It gained points for its smooth interface, ease of use, and its wide application support. Palm’s WebOS also gets bonus points for its interface and strong ties into Web-based services, including Google’s own calendar and e-mail. And Android gets plenty of attention, too: Its pretty-face design (though, WebOS and iPhone are prettier still) and interface makes it highly competitive with WebOS and iPhone OS 3.0, and its connectivity and integration with Google’s Web services (calendar and e-mail, but not Google Docs) made me take notice when I reviewed the first Android phone to hit the market last fall, the T-Mobile G1.

The key thing to remember is that even though these mobile operating systems are tied tightly with their handset hardware, they are not necessarily limited to smart phone handsets. Rumors of a Google operating system based on Android have been circulating for a while now, and already we’ve seen reports of planned netbooks that will run Android (Acer’s Aspire One is due in the fall). In fact, smart phones are nothing more than low-powered, highly portable computers, often running ARM or similar processors — the same processors found in so-called smartbooks, and soon to be found in some netbooks, perhaps, as well.

The idea of an Android-based netbook OS is not new then, and makes the news of Google Chrome all the more unsurprising. However, why Android? What’s to stop WebOS for making a go of it on a larger, more powerful device than the Palm Pre? Why wouldn’t Apple pipe its iPhone OS 3.0 (based on the same kernel as Mac OS X) to a tablet or other portable device? Thus far, the sort of Google-to-Web integration we’ve seen from Android on smart phones, and from Chrome on the PC, just hasn’t seemed all that unique.

For example, the current Chrome browser for Windows gives some insight into the blurring lines between desktop and Web browser. Chrome lets you create shortcuts on your Windows PC to any Web page or Web application, for example (this feature is not yet available in the Mac version of Chrome). When Chrome first came out, this felt fresh. Now, however, I’m less impressed — Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 lets me do that, too, on my iPhone 3GS.

Chrome OS vs. Current Options

Before I can understand the value of a Google-owned, Chrome-based operating system, I’d have to understand what it offers to me as a user that will be different from any of the options available to me today. In Google’s blog posting announcing Chrome OS, the company notes “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.”

I spend most of my time on the Web, but the above, admittedly early, description does nothing to help differentiate Android from Chrome OS. Indeed, I question the language: Android users are more likely than anyone to be heavily tied into the Web, given the always-on connectivity on mobile devices.

So, what, exactly, might be the difference between Android and Chrome OS, and how might that challenge Windows? Presumably, for Chrome OS to truly be a competitive option to Windows 7 on full-blown laptop and desktop configurations, you’d need for Chrome to have wide device driver support for components and peripherals — a sandbox Google hasn’t really played in before. Without such device support, Google could run into issues with far-flung devices such as printers or graphics cards. The company might even need Windows virtualization for Chrome OS: After all, users who rely on Windows apps might still need to access those apps on any Google-based device.

And speaking of apps, while Google notes that apps for Chrome OS would work on any other browser, it still opens questions about what the advantage of a browser-based app would be to begin with. Look at what happened with Apple’s attempt at browser-based apps: It fizzled and was completely forgotten once iPhone OS 2.0 hit last summer with full support for locally-stored applications. Chrome OS may have an early advantage that the iPhone lacked, in that HTML 5 has support for locally-stored data for Web apps; however, this yet-to-be implemented approach still might not help you if you’re at 38,000 feet over Lincoln, Nebraska, and don’t have any Web access.

High Hopes

Another statement from Google got my attention: “We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear–computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates.”

These points are true, especially the one about software updates. But I don’t know anyone who’ll want to only store data in the cloud; nor do I know anyone who would use a device as a primary computer if it won’t work with the host of devices one might attach. And to assume that a new Google OS won’t require constant software updates is a bit presumptive: Google has pushed out Android updates big and small; and Apple is continually updating is iPhone OS 3.0.

I do think that Android and Chrome OS can have a place on devices, and I believe these will give competing operating systems, mobile or otherwise, a run for their money — if, and only if they have apps that provide cross-platform compatibility with the Windows universe. But I’m not convinced that even Google can challenge Windows (or Mac OS X for that matter) on netbooks or larger devices. The device and software compatibility issues loom large here. And until Google can sell users on the advantages of its Chrome OS over other competitive options, I think the company could have an uphill struggle for carving out the niche it clearly has targeted with Android and Chrome on mobile and non-PC devices.

Microsoft Windows 7, Google Chrome OS, the first netbook with Android — these are just a few of the interlinked developments we have to look forward to in the third quarter of the year. It’s going to be a busy fall, after all.