The techno-worlds of open-source and standards-compliance are united in celebration on the heels of Google's (GOOG) announcement of a new and upcoming platform called Chrome OS. A new giant has awaken to try and breach the Windows stranglehold of the modern world. Free and widely available Linux couldn't do it, the fawned-over and renowned Mac OS X still can't do it, but perhaps the quirky little giant that is Google can lead a way towards universal, free and open salvation.

Google's announcement that it is in fact working on a full fledged Personal Computer Operating System shouldn't really come as a surprise given that over the past year and a half it has launched the Android OS for Mobile Devices and Chrome, the first browser to have individual process management, a staple of every flavor of operating system in the modern computing world. Rumors of Google's OS work span back years in the blogosphere, but nothing was concrete until today's unveiling of Chrome OS, an operating system to run on full household computers based on Google technology and an open source Linux under-pinning.

By marketing this move into Operating System territory on the back of its growing Chrome browser user-base, Google is squarely taking a web-centric view of the computing world. Coincidentally, after years of perpetual beta, Google removed the beta label off of several products in its Apps suite, charting a path towards an enterprise serious attitude that the company has of yet never employed. First Google Apps gets a fresh coat of grown-up paint and now Google eyes the netbook market as the first for its full fledged operating system. Microsoft (MSFT) better not turn a blind eye to these threats like it has to others who have tried to vault into its dominant space.

After mostly shrugging off Apple's jabs at Windows Vista and watching itself slowly but surely lose some market share, it still took the worst worldwide recession in generations to get Microsoft's attention to start firing back at competitors. This is a company that cannot afford to rest on its laurels, nor one that can afford to blow dollar after dollar in a blinding struggle for relevance in markets that it is an also-ran in (i.e. Internet Search). Google's head on assault began years ago as it made the web (and inherently itself) the first destination for millions of computer users, then it got them hooked on a new way of looking at e-mail, then followed that with calendars and slowly simple documents and spreadsheets, all while being dismissed by market leaders as too simple or too weak for real use. Newsflash to those competitors: Majority of people only really need simple and weak, and powerful office suites and complex operating systems exist on most computers because there was no other choice!

The web browser is the portal to the new technology world and Google, Microsoft and Apple (AAPL) all know it, however Google's become the most nimble of the three at being able to adapt to it.