Google Chrome: Microsoft's Shiny New Enemy

Updated from 10:34 a.m. EDT with stock information

Google (GOOG Quote) is targeting another market where Microsoft (MSFT Quote) has dropped the ball.

Setting its sights on the fast-growing netbook segment, Google expects to have a Chrome operating system ready for use a year from now. Google's lighter, faster, and presumably free Linux-based system will attempt to power an array of devices in between mobile phones and notebooks.

Google's Android software has already been sweeping Microsoft Windows Mobile out of the smartphone picture. But Android isn't up to the netbook task, and Microsoft's Windows systems are too large and too expensive.

Device trends are headed to a place where software has been lagging. Always on, power-sipping, instant-booting netbooks aren't designed for Windows, and while Linux operating systems fit the limited resource requirements, they get a big thumbs-down from consumers.

The next generation of devices require a new generation of operating software.

Big tech shops like Nokia (NOK Quote), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ Quote), Dell (DELL Quote), Apple (AAPL Quote), Asus and Acer are planning or already make mini-notebooks in response to the netbook invasion. And chipmakers like Qualcomm (QCOM Quote), Intel (INTC Quote), AMD (AMD Quote), Nvidia (NVDA Quote) and Texas Instruments (TXN Quote) have big plans for the mini computing space.

It was inevitable, perhaps, that Google would jump in to the netbook operating system arena given its early success with Android.

Microsoft, oddly enough, has an in-between system called Windows CE, derisively called Wince. And outfits like Nvidia are working with manufacturers to produce mini-notebooks running on Windows CE as early as this year, Nvidia mobile device general manager Mike Rayfield said recently.

But most consumer electronics makers have been taking a pass on Windows CE for the past several years.