Google also made a major bet that the cloud would become the next desktop by unveiling a beta version of its Chrome OS -- an operating system a year in the making -- and a test version of its branded netbook, which boots up near instantly.
The latest version of Chrome OS supports a variety of Web-based apps like mail, document editing and photo sharing or social networks for basic productivity tasks. Cloud computing devices like the Google netbook simply give access to the apps based on user preferences through the Chrome OS platform -- no matter who the person is logging in. This means multiple users can log on to Google apps through one computer and all see a different configuration of applications.
