Chrome OS Could Replace 60% of Windows PCs, Says Google Exec

Google vice-president for Chrome software engineering Linus Upson said in an interview with the New York Times earlier this week that 60% of Windows PCs in businesses could be replaced with machines running the company’s forthcoming Chrome OS.

The Chrome OS, originally planned for release in the second half of 2010 and currently slated for release in early 2011, is mostly just the Chrome browser running on top of a very lightweight Linux base. It forgoes most of the trappings of a traditional operating system in favor of Web-based apps and cloud computing services. Google supposes that most of the things people do on a business computer are done (or, at least, could be done) in a Web browser.
The Chrome OS is a very interesting idea, but the PC market has changed significantly since the its announcement. For one, the OS has been designed with netbooks in mind, and it is on these machines that the operating system will make its debut. However, this market has weakened immensely, due to tablets like the iPad, market saturation, and consumer disinterest.
Secondly, when the Chrome OS was announced, Google’s Android OS was still having growing pains. Now, it powers a wide array of the market’s smartphones, and it’s beginning to appear on tablets as well.
While I think that the Chrome OS has some good fundamentals – lightweight, quick-booting, invisible automatic updates – I don’t think that most businesses are going to be quick to move to a whole new operating system. The biggest factor here is probably the full Microsoft Office suite, to which many of even the lightest-use office computers are tethered. Support for printers and other peripherals is also limited in Linux, especially compared to Windows and OS X.
Whatever the Chrome OS does (I’m actually interested in trying to make some public-use Web kiosks with it), it’s clear that the first thing Google has to do is release the OS. Until then, it really doesn’t matter how big a game Google wants to talk.