How Media hyped up Google Chrome OS
By Shalini Singh

Google dominates the online search market and Google Apps products like gmail are hugely popular. So, whenever Google announces a new product or feature, it is picked up by most newspapers, TV Stations and blogs.  In the media’s quest to outdo each other and ‘engage’ their readership, excitement and exaggeration drive the first cut of news. Cold reality is more boring.

Yesterday, Google announced that it would be releasing a new operating system Chrome OS next year for notebooks, and later for desktops.  The media slathered in excitement and presented it as a battle between tech titans Microsoft and Google.

On July 8, respected Indian tech site Techtree told their readers: “Google today announced the Chrome OS (operating system) for desktops and notebooks throwing a direct challenge to Microsoft's Windows operating system family. This Linux kernel based operating systems has its roots in Google's Chrome browser and is different from Android. Google will be launching the Chrome OS for netbooks in second half of 2010. “

Popular CIOL had the headline ‘Google's Chrome OS aims to kill Windows’

American media were even more jingoistic.  America’s No. 1 tech blog Techcrunch screamed in one of its headline: ‘Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made of Chrome’

Many a time, American media sets the tone of the reporting.  The rest of the world follows.

By July 9, the hyperbole was dissipating. The reality was a bit boring.

American Tech super guru David Winer’s article was being quoted telling the real story. David wrote in part:

“
Yesterday Google announced The Chrome OS, which is hailed by the industry press as a surprise middle-of-the-night attack against their arch-rival, Microsoft. But did any of the reporters take a quiet moment to reflect on the basic question: What Just Happened? If they had, they would have been hard-pressed to find anything actually had happened, other than a press release. 

Let's be dispassionate. Before yesterday's announcement: 1. Chrome ran on Linux. 2. Linux was an operating system. 3. Linux ran on netbooks. 

However, most people want Windows XP on their netbook, not Linux. That was true yesterday and it's still true today. 
“

America’s No. 1 tech blog Techcrunch, in a change of views, also felt that Google could not really challenge Microsoft:

“
We’ve been sitting things out today as our brothers at TC pant over ChromeOS, the latest OS based on Linux to impress, however lightly, upon the synapses of our country’s journalistic elite. ChromeOS can’t beat anything. In fact suggesting that ChromeOS will beat Windows or even OS X is like expecting Coby to come up behind Sony and Samsung next year in Blu-Ray player popularity. As a wise man once said “Ain’t the same ** ballpark. It ain’t the same league, it ain’t even the same ** sport.”

ChromeOS is a specialized version of Linux designed for netbooks. It is more like Android than anything else and, as Fake Steve notes, no one will use it. Oh, manufacturers will pay lip service to it and maybe someone will install it on a few million machines but it will be a drop in the bucket compared to the powerful web OSes called Windows 7 and OS X.
“