Does Google Have a Secret OS? - Page 2

Page 2 of 2

Such an OS would be an expanded version of the Android OS the company recently released for mobile phones, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst for The Enderle Group. "They were clear they were going to go down this direction, with a platform that largely lives off the cloud with Google apps," he told InternetNews.com. Look at it as the Android concept expanded to a PC."

Both felt Google would not take on Microsoft on the operating system level, because its goal was to make that level irrelevant. "I would never expect Google to get into a desktop OS space," said Ryder. "That just doesn't make sense. But for a network application infrastructure that is not dependent on the hardware but just the usage of a client, that would make more sense."

Enderle noted this would be the final piece after Google Apps, the Chrome browser and the Toolbar, which combined are the total user experience, all provided by Google. An underlying infrastructure similar to Android to run it all would be the logical conclusion.

"If you think about it, if you live off Google tools, the company that provides the experience into everything else would be Google, not Microsoft," he said. "It's an interesting strategy and I think it could work, but it would be premature to bring that to market because Chrome is not ready."