Well, that didn't take long. Last night, we reported that sources inside and outside Google were suggesting that the company would announce a Chrome-centered OS within a matter of days. It turned out to be a matter of hours. Late Tuesday night, the Google Blog officially announced that the Google Chrome OS was a reality and would appear on netbooks some time later next year.

The announcement contained a thesis statement that is a bit more significant than it might appear at first: "It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be." That statement has both strategic and practical implications, which we'll consider in turn.

From a strategic perspective, "what operating systems should be" clearly involves a heavy dose of Google-driven Web apps, from e-mail to spreadsheets. The entire OS will be focused on getting users into a Web browser as quickly as possible; any other applications will be secondary and probably not provided by Google. Instead, once the browser launches, users can do their computing via online applications, saving their data in the cloud (think of all those "gDrive" rumors from the last few years).

Google views this as computing nirvana for users, saying, "[Users] 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."

But there are still a variety of applications that simply can't be replicated within a browser, and consumers have had a mixed reaction to Google's own apps, embracing Gmail but finding its presentation software to be severely limited compared to its desktop app counterparts. But the Chrome OS will be appearing first on netbooks, which can't handle some of the more heavyweight desktop applications in the first place. And the new offering has the potential to drive users to rely on Google's online offerings, which certainly would further the company's goals.

Of course, the cloud is only useful if it's accessible, and staying online isn't always convenient or cheap at this stage. The new offline storage capabilities in the latest Web standards certainly limit the impact of temporary disconnection and, by controlling the whole software stack, Google has the opportunity to make sure its applications play nicely when the computer happens to be offline.

From a technological perspective, there appear to be some interesting aspects to rethinking the operating system. For one, by having an extremely narrow focus—bringing up a networking stack and browser as quickly as possible—Chrome OS has the ability to cut down on the hassles related to restarting and hibernating computers. And, aside from the browser, all of the key applications will reside online, security and other software updates won't happen on the computer itself, which should also improve the user experience.

From a security perspective, Google claims that it will be "completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS" in a way that eliminates virus and malware worries. The sandboxing and process isolation that Google has built into the Chrome browser undoubtedly provide much of that security, so it's unclear what will have to happen at the OS level; it's possible that Google will be looking at ways to extend this level of security to third party apps.

More cryptically, Google also says that the users it views as its target market "don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware." That problem has plagued all OS makers, and none of them have solved it to the satisfaction of all users. It's possible that Google thinks it can do so, but given its general attitude (everyone should be happy with Web apps), it's equally possible that the company has decided that people simply don't need much in the way of peripherals.

At the moment, the Linux port of Chrome is still in rough shape (although it's improving rapidly), so it's no surprise that the arrival of the OS is still a ways off. The code itself will be released to the community later this year, and Google says the partners it has lined up won't release hardware to consumers until 2010. The intervening time may also be necessary for more sites to start adopting tags for embedding video and audio content in a way that ensures that the Chrome OS can handle multimedia.

One part of the announcement that may be causing a few grey hairs in Santa Clara: the Chrome OS will run on both x86 and ARM. Many manufacturers have been considering ARM in netbooks due to its exceptional power management capabilities, but the lack of a Windows port has undoubtedly held things back. A netbook-specific Linux with a high-profile corporation like Google backing it may change perceptions and help usher ARM into the space just above handheld hardware, where the architecture already dominates.

Will all of this work? Apple spent a couple of years trying to convince developers that they should be happy with Web apps, but it's clear that the arrival of native applications has been a significant driver of the iPhone's popularity. Palm appears to be trying something closer to Google's vision with the Pre, but Palm is also offering a native SDK, and it's too early to tell how well its reliance on online services will work out for users. At this stage, it's not even clear if the netbook market will have staying power once the economy picks back up.

All of that would tend to suggest a Chrome OS could wind up occupying a niche. But that may be perfectly fine from Google's perspective. At the moment, Chrome also occupies a relatively small niche, but it has helped change perceptions of what a browser should do in terms of sandboxing processes and isolating plugins. If the Chrome OS can help change consumer perceptions about the utility of online applications and cloud storage, it could be a big success for Google, even without wide adoption.