Chrome OS Notebooks are coming

Google Chrome OS

At its Google I/O developer conference here, Google introduced notebooks based on its Chrome Operating System, the search engine’s Web-based operating system for provisioning Web applications from the cloud to commodity hardware.
Samsung and Acer are the first two Chromebook partners, each offering machines online June 15 from Best Buy and Amazon.com in the United States. The Samsung Series 5 Chromebook will be available in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Spain.
The Series 5 is priced at $429 for the WiFi-only model and $499 for a computer with a 3G radio. Acer’s WiFi-only Chromebook will start at $349 and will be sold in the same markets. Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome product management, said in his May 11 keynote that he envisions users will access their email, pictures, video and documents from Google’s cloud. It’s a bold bet against the Microsoft Windows hegemony and even against the second most powerful computing platform, Apple’s Macintosh.
My bet is that it’s not even going to make a DENT against Microsoft’s Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Now over at ZDNET, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols disagrees with me and says that Chrome OS will be huge for the following reasons.

1. Attractive business packaging and pricing
2. Ease of use
3. Lots of Applications
4. Security
5. Google Brand Recognition

Despite all that, I believe that the UI is inferior to even Windows 7.
The Achilles heel for Windows was always the UI, stability, crashes and viruses. Windows 7 has done away with a lot of that so Windows 8 might make it even harder for Chrome OS to display any solid advantages.
I believe that Google took the easy way out in creating a Cloud UI and as a result, it wont catch on.
I like making big bold bets, let’s see how I do on this one.