There's a bit of a buzz in the IT press today. Google have announced they're going to release their own OS! But what does this mean & why should we get excited at all about it? First of all, let me explain what an OS (Operating System) is. In a nutshell, the OS allows you to do stuff on a computer... like, for example, loading Firefox to view this web page. Now most of you when you switch the computer on will be loading some flavour of the Windows OS, whether that be Windows XP or Windows Vista. And therein lies the first bit of excitement. Google are effectively launching a product which will (on a certain level) compete with Microsoft Windows. The second bit of excitement relates to Google's goal with their new OS. Google say their OS will "make people's computing experience better". With this in mind, Google have engineered the upcoming OS to be fast, lightweight, simple to use and secure. This will give us a number of benefits including : 1. Being able to switch-on their computer and get onto the web in seconds. 2. No need for anti-virus, anti-malware and other bulky security programs. 3. No need to remember about data backups (as files will be stored on the Internet). Hopefully, we will start seeing netbooks & other small computing devices on the market during the second half of 2010. I very much look forward to seeing the system... and Microsoft's reaction to Google's announcement.