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The Google OS Is DoomedFive reasons why the new Chrome operating system is a bad idea.

By Farhad ManjooPosted Thursday, July 9, 2009, at 5:52 PM ET

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Chris Wilson predicted the rise of the browser-as-OS. Farhad Manjoo wondered what the netbook craze means for the future of laptops and urged everyone to download Firefox 3.5. Harry McCracken reviewed a new Google product that could bring Microsoft to its knees.

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Farhad Manjoo is Slate's technology columnist and the author of True Enough: Learning To Live in a Post-Fact Society. You can e-mail him at and follow him on Twitter.

COMMENTS

Why not Android?

I don't know why Google didn't create just OS to use across the board. Why not just create an Android OS that's a full operating system and a stripped down version to run on Mobile Phones? That is precisely Microsoft's model, so I know it works. In a sense, Java is the same- the full featured Java SE for desktop and server applications, and Java ME for mobile phones.

-- todji
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That seems to be the key question. Apple works the same way, too. (One OS, many versions.)

-- Farhad Manjoo
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This is my guess: Chrome is being marketed as a stripped-down operating system. Android is for mobile devices, which is still a different animal than desktops and netbooks. You also create programs for Android, but Chrome it's still very much web-based. I think there are too many different things between the two to call them the same thing. Sure you could call it "Chrome" and "Chrome Mobile" but the biggest similarly would be the name. I guess it would boil down to how hard it would be to port an application from Chrome to Chrome Mobile or the other way around.

-- b_r
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