The news spurted out when beta testers started receiving email from Google Chrome Team, inviting them to grab some limited set of Samsung Chromebooks from Gilt.

Here’s how the email reads…

chromebook store

Now, even if you want one right now, you won’t be able to buy a Chromebook, even from Gilt, unless you have received the above email invite. Good thing is that these lucky Chromebook buyers will also get custom-fit Chrome sleeve by Rickshaw.

If you didn’t get such an email invite, you better stay patient till the Chromebook launch at Amazon and BestBuy.

But one thing that stole the limelight among other things was much awaited ‘Chrome OS event’. Google invited tech journos to the suspense packed event on Tuesday, Dec 7 and the event proved to be a mixed bag of fruits.

Chrome OS team explained that they have long been hard at work, building Chrome OS from the ground up but they’re still not ready with fully tested and debugged version of Chrome OS and therefore, as rumored earlier, releasing only beta version of Chrome OS at the moment so no consumer Chromebook for Chrome OS fans during the holiday season.

In a pilot program set up by Google for Chrome OS, the Internet giant is giving away truckloads of Chrome OS Notebooks, named Cr-48, by giving any adult U.S. citizen a chance to request for a test unit using this form. Cr-48 notebooks carry no branding whatsoever(not even Google’s ) and with distribution of fully loaded(Verizon powered 3G) notebooks, Google’s plan is to create tens of thousands of beta testers of Chrome OS beta version.

As Google clearly stated during Chrome event itself, the current version of Chrome OS installed on Cr-48 notebooks is in its beta state and therefore, all lucky recipients of Chrome OS should expect to encounter lot of bugs while using the test unit.

The more users of Cr-48 notebooks out there, the more data(bug reporting) Google will gather from actual usage habits of end consumers.

About the future of Chrome OS

Well, many skeptics were pretty unsure about Google’s stance over Chrome OS, especially after managing to grow many folds in mobile OS space with Android. The fact of the matter is that Google looks up to Chrome OS as their ultimate cloud based OS and envision it as the future of computing in the years to come.

One must note here that Google refrained from using the term ‘Netbook’ during the Chrome event and preferred calling their Cr-48 test unit as Cr-48 Notebook, not an over-sized Netbook.

Although not highlighted much, there seems to be a shift in Google’s strategy with reference to their main hardware focus regarding Chrome OS. Netbooks are sharply loosing their relevance in computing industry with the fast advent of consumer friendly tablets and Android seems more appropriately positioned to capitalize on untapped tablet market, instead of Chrome OS.

PC market is already facing severe decline due to obvious limitations and that leaves laptop/notebooks as the only potent hardware option that will successfully thrive in the days to come.  That’s probably the reason why Google is pushing ‘Chrome OS’ as the future OS for Notebooks.

Google also confirmed during the event that Acer and Samsung will be the first two companies, who would bring their Chrome OS Notebooks into the market by mid 2011. More manufacturers will join the bandwagon as the time progresses.

Google is giving away Cr-48 Notebooks via several other ways apart from the primary option of form entry so we will be reporting on those ways as we discover them. Keep visiting our site for more info.

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So after a ton of rumors, we have some solid news about the arrival of ChromeOS/ Chromebook.

Linus Upson, Google’s Vice President of Engineering has made some bold statements over the status of ChromeOS and what should people expect from Google with regard to this.

Mr. Upson told NYT that Chrome OS would be a universal computing platform spanning hand-held devices, tablets and TVs, not just netbooks.

He also said “We are starting with laptops and we will expand in both directions” he said. He reaffirmed that ChromeOS will come out this year itself(probably in Beta) and also hinted at the possibility of Google branded Netbook, similar to what Google did with Nexus One.

Now, these statements stand in direct conflict with CEO Eric Schmidt’s early statements given during Web 2.0 conference about Chrome OS. He said that Chrome OS and Android differ in their suitability and asserted that Chrome OS is more inclined towards keyboard based devices and Android is more suitable for touchscreen devices.

One year back, the earlier vision of Google for Chrome OS was indeed making Chrome OS a universal platform for computing across a wide range of devices, from netbooks to laptops, smartphones and tablets. That vision seems to match perfectly with Google VP’s recent comments. But statements from Google CEO Eric Schmidt have made things more confusing than doing any good.

One major reason why Chrome OS vision is still under lot of confusion is because of the super success of Android mobile platform and production of several tablets using Android OS. Even Google TV software is built on top of Android platform. May be, Android fit itself into most of the areas which were earlier planned for Chrome OS.

But it is apparent that Google’s future is actually into web based platform only and chances are that Chrome OS is the right platform for it. Android, albeit being a super-success in mobile landscape, doesn’t provide a long term solution for computing.

In our opinion, Android, being so dominant in mobile turf will remain Google’s preferred choice as their primary mobile OS, atleast for the foreseeable future. ChromeOS may probably take the lead in other variety of devices such as netbooks, laptops, tablets, TVs.

After months of speculation and media sniffing, the consensus over Google OS launch is that the much awaited web based OS, popularly known as ChromeOS, is not going to launch during Christmas or anywhere near that.

So those people who were holding their breath and avoiding to buy any other netbook or tablet in expectation of announcement of a Chrome OS netbook should better go pick an Android tablet instead or the iPad.

Some experts are surmising that Google may be recalibrating its Chrome OS strategy, seeing the super success of Android platform in past one year, especially on touchscreen devices. Earlier, we did hear some news on manufacturing of Chrome OS tablets by HTC and Google but now, those tablets are looking far from reality, thanks to Eric Schmidt’s clarifying statements at Web 2.0 summit about Android’s suitability of touch devices compared to ChromeOS.

To be precise, Eric Schmidt told that Google Chrome OS is still “few months away” from actual launch so it’s apparent that Chrome OS will not arrive during holiday season.

But all of this does not mean that Google may be thinking of killing their Chrome OS project before its launch itself. Android platform is great and touted as the future dominant platform but that does not take away from the core principle behind Chrome OS and that is all ‘web apps’ become ‘native apps’. That’s how the future of computing is supposed to be.

So, all you Chrome OS enthusiasts, as you’ve patiently waited for so long, wait for some more time… !

And now comes the good news. Chrome OS has likely hit the ‘Beta’ stage. Below is the snapshot that validates this assertion. The snapshot shows that ChromeOS is now “cros,beta,8.0.552.19,7.0.531.1” . ‘cros’ means ChromeOS.

Here’s the link for validation, which has been located from this bug listing. All these hints are possible indications that Chrome OS is very much ready for public debut by this month end.

It is also quoted that that some unnamed ‘Global Netbook vendor’ will inaugurate Chrome OS netbook line. Acer and HP will likely release their Chrome OS power netbooks in December, following the first ChromeOS netbook launch.

Another news(with unnamed sources) claim is that Google is well on its way to come up with Self-branded Netbooks, just like what it did with Nexus One. With Google branded netbooks, we can be sure that Chrome OS integration with Netbook hardware will be seamless and best-in-class.

On the other side, the bad news is that Google may avoid selling its self-branded Chrome OS Netbooks through any retail store. The rumor claims that Google branded Netbooks will only be sold online, the same way Nexus One got sold.

There is no logical reasoning for ‘Online selling only’ model and completely prohibiting from Retail selling, especially when Google branded Nexus One, despite being a superb Android phone, failed to capture any reasonable market share due to failure of ‘online only’ strategy and poor marketing. Despite this rumor, our assumption is that Google will hit Retail stores along with Online store for Google branded Netbook.

As per the rumor, Inventec will first manufacture around 60-70k units of the first Chrome OS Netbook, and mass production will happen afterwards.

Stay tuned for more updates on this…

Most of the debugging/resolution currently under progress is related to Build area(indicating near final build version) and DesignUI , both being associated with front-end issues, which are usually dealt at the final stages of software life cycle.

Serious Flash issues appear to have been resolved by now. The only left out bugs that are critical in nature and running under high priority relate to Power performance and Boot time lag.

Interestingly, drastically small Boot time was the main selling point of Chrome OS when Chrome OS got announced. It’s absurd that boot time is going upto 40 seconds, as reported in this bug.

Anyways, November 11, the rumored date for some big announcement from Google Chrome OS team is just two weeks away so event invites might hit the journos and tech bloggers, right at the start of next month.

Hold your breath…Some big news is cooking behind the scenes…

As no official comments have been made over the release date of ChromeOS powered netbooks, the only way to find any clue about Chrome OS is to dig out bug status reports and estimate the progress of Chrome OS by itself.

And after tracking bug reports of Chrome OS, we have a feeling that Chrome OS may probably get further delayed. Nov 11, the previously estimated date might just be the unveiling of the Operating System, not the actual release of Chrome OS powered Netbooks.

From there, Netbook manufacturers will also take couple of months to start selling Chrome OS powered Netbooks. So, taking a safe assumption, Chrome OS Netbooks should hit the market by March-April 2011.

But what has really kept the Chrome OS project from completing by now ? Keeping regular bugs aside, one big problem that’s bugging Chrome OS progress is Flash !

Call it the burden of staying compliant with Flash content, which is ubiquitous over Internet or dealing with power and performance issues that come with it, there is some good logic why Apple hates it so much and has picked HTML5 as an alternative instead.

These are the bugs in Chrome OS project revolving around Flash. In one of the threads, the bug is hovering around non-loading of Flash content on some hugely popular websites. Most of the Flash related bugs are still open, except this one that has been fixed just yesterday.

In some threads, Flash plugin has also been reportedly consuming unnecessary power and affecting the battery performance on Chrome OS loaded Netbooks. When Chrome OS got introduced, long battery performance was one of the main concerns of the Chrome OS team and we can only hope that Chrome OS team will(or probably has) find some solution to performance hindrance that comes along with Flash support.

As full Flash support is extremely critical at the launch of Chrome OS, the Google OS has to comply with Flash and fix all these bugs at the earliest. It remains to be seen, however, if Chrome OS team will be able to keep its due promise and announce the Chrome OS within next couple of weeks.

But along with all the accomplishments that HP has made in the past decade, one important area where HP is seriously lagging behind is its monopolized Print business. And it’s not HP’s competitors(Canon, Lexmark…) which are hurting the revenue stream of HP’s established print business but there’s a different sort of threat for them. It’s the Next Generation digital devices that are making Paper printing worthless.

With the advent of smartphones, e-readers and tablet devices, people are getting more adapted to reading content over the screen. Less people are looking interested in printing every single document they want to read as the comfort zone is slowly drifting to Wireless digital devices from Paper reading.

Dying business of Newspaper & Magazine industry is one big indicator. That’s probably the reason why media entities like WSJ and NYTimes have launched their iPhone and iPad apps, to keep serving their content to current generation of consumers.

Apart from the changing preferences of our generation when it comes to consuming content, there’s another reason why Printing is no more a desired thing for many of us. The reason is the incapability of most of the upcoming devices to start printing right away.

Majority of printers that HP builds today require printer specific drivers, wired connectivity, etc as the mandatory condition, which simply turns off anyone interested in taking a quick print from his smartphone or tablet, as all of them are wireless devices and don’t have printer drivers installed on their sleek machines.

All of this is hampering HP’s print business revenues to a great extent. Solution ?

HP has found a reliable companion, which will make things better than what they are now. Google and Google Cloud Print to be more specific.

As Chrome OS team announced earlier about Google Cloud Print, a cloud based service to execute printing jobs from any device (Desktop, phone or browser), without any need of printer drivers, it recently updated about the progress on Google Cloud Print service and also highlighted HP’s launch of full suite of cloud-aware printers ranging from $99 consumer printers to business-oriented printers.

As Google describes, Google Cloud Print can print from any printer, be it a legacy printer or upcoming Cloud aware printers but Google strongly recommends Cloud aware printers as they will give the best experience to the users. And supporting Google’s vision, HP has finally come up with affordable ‘Cloud aware’ printers.

Google employees have started internal testing of ‘Google Cloud Print’ service employing HP’s cloud aware printers and it seems that the goods(Chrome OS) are most likely to be delivered on time(this fall), as committed.

As more and more people are spending substantial time on Internet and more likely from their wireless devices(smartphones, tablets), if all of us become able to start printing right from our smartphones and tablet devices, HP will have far less problems to deal with, to keep its print business revenues flowing.

Today, one of the most critical questions of them all, ‘Printing’ from a Web based device appears to have been solved by Google Chrome OS team. Writing a post on the Chromium blog today, Chrome OS team has introduced some preliminary designs for a project called Google Cloud Print.

Google Cloud Print will basically enable all web enabled devices, be it desktop, web or mobile to be able to give printing job commands to any kind of printers, either Cloud aware printers or legacy printers, without any need of printer drivers.

So, all web enabled devices will actually give their print commands to ‘Google Cloud Print’ service and then it will be Google Cloud Print service, which will forward your print command to your Cloud aware or Legacy printers and get the job done.

Google Cloud Print service is still under development and the Chrome OS team has made both code and documentation publicly available.

All of this means that work behind Google Chrome OS is in full pace and all possible difficulties in building this revolutionary Web based OS will be conquered, soon or later.

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