Google's recent announcement that it was developing its own operating system (OS) based on Linux has been received with mixed reviews. According to Google, the OS will focus on speed, simplicity and security and will initially be targeted at netbooks, with its primary objective of allowing users to run a browser to access their online services. Importantly, it will be free to end users and be released as open source, allowing anyone to contribute to the project.

Critics of the announcement claim that Google is fragmenting the already saturated OS market, and that it should have partnered with one of the existing Linux OS vendors such as Ubuntu. The argument is largely based around not reinventing the wheel, and ensuring stability for the Linux OS camp, in order for it to compete more successfully against the likes of Microsoft.

However, others have been praising Google's strategy as innovative and game changing. All other significant OS's (Windows, OS X and Linux) have a windowing systems allowing the user to install and run applications locally on the machine (just as the way the Rype Desktop works). ChromeOS will allow a browser and not much else to run locally, users will then access their applications online. This is significant as it drives users to further utilise online applications and services, you probably already do email, social networking and banking online; ChromeOS will drive users to accept that most if not all services can be accessed at any time on any device.

Here at Rype we feel that the storing your personal and business information online is the way of the future, Google's announcement of a slimmed down OS to support this model is further confirmation of the increased availability and security that cloud computing offers. Right now, however, we feel that the browser does not offer a rich enough user experience for some applications, which is why the Rype Desktop is an application that you run locally that accesses your information stored on our secure servers.

Ultimately, Google's announcement has already and will continue to raise awareness of the benefits of cloud computing, the future looks exiting!