Google has their head buried deep in Chrome OS land where the operating system is expected to ship sometime in Q2 of this year. Google is reportedly working out retail deals with manufacturers and suppliers. Recently there has been lots of testing going on at the factory level with partners such as Acer and Samsung.

Chrome OS is being described as being an "optimized experience" for netbooks and will come with Wi-Fi and 3G options. Chrome OS will only ship on specific hardware following deals that are struck between Google and the manufacturers. Chromium OS (the open source development version of Chrome OS) will be available as a disk image so that enthusiasts can put Chrome OS on any machine they please - however, this won't get the same support from Google.