Chrome OS – vBrainstorm.com

I came home Tuesday to find a surprise waiting next to my door. There was a generic UPS package delivered and I could not figure out what I had ordered. I certainly wasn’t waiting or expecting a package. I opened up the box to find another generic box inside, still wondering, “What is this?” in my mind. I turned over the interior box to find purple grafitti on the package and then I realized that I’d just received a CR-48 Chrome notebook from Google as part of Chrome OS pilot program.

I have since read that others have had this same surprise as their notebooks have arrived. There was no advanced notification to expect the notebook and no emails with tracking information, etc. So, the surprise factor just makes the entire experience all the more exciting.

Following up on my earlier post about Chrome OS, I got to thinking. Google has GMail for email, Talk for chat, Google Docs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, and a slew of other cloud based apps. But what is missing from their portfolio and therefore missing in Chrome OS? I know we don’t know most of the details yet, but we can imagine that the system (being simple and secure) would have very little in it – maybe Chrome browser and maybe a GTalk client.

1) Music – we’re a world accustomed to iTunes and buying our music online. Where will that fit? How will it — or simply will Chrome OS handle media files?

2) Video – Sure, like music, what about video playback? YouTube is great, but there aren’t any video editing tools online as part of YouTube – you have to somehow capture and piece together your videos. I’ve never encountered an online video editing software (yet…).

3) Gaming – Sure EA is making some of their games available online and it is generally accepted for game consoles to have online portals to download games – but how will Chrome OS accomplish this? Will it shy away from this on its underpowered hardware ?

4) Photo editing – Sure, Google has Picasa, but will it be packaged with Chrome OS? It has Picasaweb, but its features are currently very limited and its space is also.

What else am I missing – I’m sure there is more…