Chrome OS Should Cost Around $300 to $400

Internal development of Google’s Chrome OS is expected to finalize late this year, with products launching in early 2011. Chrome OS is a cloud-oriented operating system targeted at heavy internet users. Over the last few years, Google has been launching many different online applications, such as Google Docs, Voice, and (of course) acquiring YouTube. The final intent for these projects is to provide the consumer with desktop-comparable applications that will run with ease on cheap netbook computers. Recently, YouTube has entered an HTML5 beta to test how well videos can be streamed without use of bulky and resource hungry applications such as Adobe Flash. With Chrome browser being HTML5 compatible, it makes a perfect match for netbooks.

Chess running on Google’s Chrome OS

It’s hard to estimate just how much market share Google’s Chrome OS will get in the first year—but Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt is confident that it will eventually be one of the largest OS distributors. He’s very confident that Google can break Microsoft’s Windows 20-year streak dominating the operating system market. We have been hearing a lot about a “Google Tablet” and Schmidt didn’t admit to manufacturing any hardware, but did mention some details about their software endeavors.
Schmidt is expects netbooks running Google’s Chrome OS to sell for around $300 to $400—which isn’t surprising considering most netbooks are priced in that range. Google will be offering Chrome OS free of charge, so the price of a Chrome OS powered netbook is mostly the cost of production. What advantages will Chrome OS have against Windows? It’s hard to say specifically—there has been plenty of speculation, but we won’t know until the final product launches.

"It will be up to the manufacturers who do it, but the price points you should think about are the current netbook pricings which are 300 dollar, 400 dollar price points.”

I’m sure that we will be able to see great integration amongst Google products. Such as the Android mobile OS, Google online services, and anything else Google may possibly launch.