Is anyone suprised by this announcement? I'm certainly not. Creating an operating system for computers always seemed to me to be the next natural step for Google after they created the Android OS, aimed more at mobile devices.

It also feels like Google's most aggressive move yet towards cloud based computing as most applications (if not all!) will be web based meaning that the device and the OS are simply a means of contacting and working from 'the cloud'.

It raises immediate questions of compatibility as new OS's always do. Will I be able to open my MS office documents in Chrome without losing the formatting? Will I have the same trouble with Flash and Java as on uBuntu?

Is this the death of uBuntu?
uBuntu is a great project and a step in the right direction towards free OS's. But it just doesn't quite work well enough for me yet. You would imagine that a Google operating system would not have these kinds of problems somehow. So Chrome really should be a free, fully working OS, addressing the above compatibility concerns which makes it a definite uBuntu killer for me. I wouldn't re-install uBuntu for a while but I would definitely be keen to install Chrome and based on Google's history of excellent platforms, I don't think I will be disappointed.

There are some questions I still need answer however:

• Chrome seems very browser based. What happens when I don't have an internet connection?
• What happens when I visit SA and am on slow connection speeds?
• Will we be able install Chrome on current Windows machines
• Can Chrome and MS run alongside eachother like uBuntu does?

Either way, as someone who operates almost entirely in the 'Google cloud', its a very exciting project doing things the right way: open source, virus free, fast and light.