Last week, Google announced its new netbook Web-focused operating system -- Chrome OS, to match its browser. The OS will be open source, a variation on Linux, so Google will be able to tap into the strength of that community from the get-go, and of course free ride on the work supported by IBM, HP, and the other tech companies who fund Linux.
There is a lot of cross-talk in the press and web about how this is or is not a deadly or minor threat to Microsoft's core Windows business, done with or without deliberate malice by Google, and how it is a disruptive or minor innovation that can be extended up the value chain (unless it is not), and how Microsoft must be very worried or perhaps highly amused.
The day before, I was at Google's DC office to hear Chris Anderson talk about his new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. One point he made is that there is a big psychological distance between "free" and even a trivial cost and that the business models of the future must cater to this. This does indeed seem to be a pre-occupation of the tech world, which thus assumes that Google's free OS should sweep the board, except of course for the power of those Microsoft people who seem to cheat by charging for their products.


