If you have not been in hibernation for the past 4-5 years, you might have been hearing rumors about how Google was secretly building a operating system to rival Microsoft.

In fact Google already built a OS for mobile phones called Android, which has had a pretty successful run so far.

To put all speculations to rest Google has finally made a announcement with regards to a operating system they are developing called Google Chrome OS.

Google Chrome OS as they are going to call their open source operating system is based on the fundamentals of the Google Chrome browser, it will be a lightweight operating system that will be initially targeted at netbooks.

It does make sense for Google to target netbooks since they usually do not have a very high configuration and a lighter OS will definitely boost the productivity.

Google Chrome OS will basically focus on speed, simplicity and security and will be designed to be fast and lightweight. Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market in 2010.

Google Chrome OS will basically focus on bringing ease of use of the web, like many of the Google products have been.

Now the bigger question, is this going to be a direct attack on Microsoft who is now the world leader and dominates the operating system. Well you can say it is a direct attack, but there is still a long way to go before Google can make inroads into Microsoft domination.

We will leave that discussion for another post, right now this is a really big news, Google has really made several people nervous about this announcement and yes this includes both Microsoft and privacy pundits alike who will be watching the release of this OS with hawk eyes.

Hopefully Google should come up with some demos of the OS soon, 2010 is still a long way away and we bet many of us really want to have a go at it much before 2010.

Introducing the Google Chrome OS [Official Google Blog]