What is Google Chrome OS really after?

The announcement of Google Chrome OS, more than a direct attack on Microsoft, is the first stage of a strategy that, if it goes well, could be the most serious threat Redmond has faced so far.

Although, according to their FAQs, the first market for Google Chrome OS will be netbooks, the truth is that developing this market will let it build enough momentum to set out to conquer a more interesting one: corporate PCs.

Those of us who work in corporate environments have been heavily building applications that run in browsers for a while now. We are building our own clouds, mainly to save ourselves headaches.

There is more and more pressure for our applications to run in the browser. It’s true that this is an idea I didn’t like a few years ago, but the reality is that we keep getting more powerful browsers, standards and powerful JavaScript interpreters.

All of that has let us build sophisticated applications on our users’ desktops without having to pay the cost of the installer.

In fact, even a simple Java applet has already become a problem, a nuisance we would like to get rid of by using Ajax, for example.

But on top of that, maintaining our users’ desktops is a nightmare for the internal IT departments of corporations. Mail servers, antivirus maintenance, control over the kind of applications users install, centralized support: all these factors push toward the need to move basic office applications to the cloud.

Google has done things well all this time, and although it now announces that its focus will be netbooks, it clearly has the time and resources to improve on that ground and get ready to attack the corporate market.

If Google Chrome OS delivers what it promises, it could easily push Windows off the desktops of corporate users.

The interesting question is what Microsoft is going to do, because the truth is that most applications will run in “the clouds” (public, private and corporate). How can Microsoft react to this tremendous threat?

If they are seeing this only as a fight for the netbook market, they are badly mistaken.

The other side effect, and an ironic one, is that it won’t be GNU/Linux that goes down in history as the one that took the desktop away from Microsoft, but Google/Linux.