Chrome OS – The Birth of the Couchputer

Finally an OS that will make my dream couchputer a reality. All the pieces are falling into place for the CrunchPad or something like it to hit the market and make a killing (well more likely just fill a niche, but don’t kill by buzz).

Right now when I’m sitting on the couch or if I’m puttering about in the kitchen I either keep my BlackBerry or my laptop on me. They each have their failings when trying to meet my needs/wants in either of these situations.

My BlackBerry is great (that’s right daddy loves you, now earmuffs for a second), but frankly I would rather be able to just set it down and let it charge when I get home. The screen is great for on-the-go access to all of my email, Facebook, Twitter and basic web browsing needs. However, it just cannot replace a more full-sized screen and fully featured browser.

My Macbook is a fantastic computer (no I didn’t forget about you, earmuffs like your little brother now), but it is too cumbersome and just plainly overkill for the light surfing, hulu’ing, social networking and emailing I’m looking for while lounging around or making some concoction in the kitchen.

Enter Chrome OS:

Google has cut out a lot of the superfluous crap that I don’t need for a secondary computer that basically lives its entire life in my house. If they can pair this with a solidly implemented but relatively inexpensive piece of touchscreen hardware (e.g., the CrunchPad) I think they are going to have a real winner. You have an “instant” on OS that does the constant updates we have grown to love on our smartphones, while also providing a fully realized browser experience.

I know this isn’t their expressed target market and that the netbook audience is probably a much bigger piece of pie to go after for them, but I just don’t see this gaining general adoption there. I think too many people will lack faith in the cloud as their central repository for all of their data and will shy away from it in favor of Windows 7 in the same way that netbook users almost uniformly chose an 8-year-old OS in Windows XP over Linux.

There is really nothing else in the niche I’m talking about right now, it’s almost the exact reason that Arrington got to building the CrunchPad in the first place, and Chrome could absolutely own whatever market is there. I think the only real question is whether this imagined couchputing market/audience really exists, if they are in fact out there I think this OS coupled with either the CrunchPad or something like it is going to scratch them right where they itch.

What do you think?

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