Submission + - Is Chrome the 'secondary' OS of the future? (gigaom.com)
ruphus13 writes: The notion of dual OSes is not new. Of late, on netbooks especially, manufacturers are pushing dual Operating Systems, each serving very specific tasks. For example, for 'fast boot', Linux has become the 'OS' of choice, even on Windows netbooks. With several services moving to the cloud, is Chrome going to find its niche as being the 'Cloud OS' for devices? OSes like Jolicloud claim "people should be able to switch operating systems on their netbooks...Like the adoption of Firefox made Web 2.0 possible, enabling users to switch OS will accelerate the growth and benefits of open cloud computing.”. From the post, "Let’s assume that the Chrome OS cloud-only model does alienate users. In that case, could Google reposition Chrome OS as a secondary, instant-on operating system that might ship alongside other operating systems, or simply be downloadable to use that way? Could it be the OS that you hop into for a crash-proof, cloud-based experience, just as many people hop in and out of the Chrome browser for its stability and other reasons? As evidence of how achievable this would be, people are already easily running Chrome OS on Dell netbooks, and noticing how much faster than Windows it is at booting. People are also calling Chrome OS “lightning from a USB key” as they use it via USB alongside other operating systems without even having it locally installed."
