On Thursday, Google made a little more information about its upcoming operating system public, while asserting that computers equipped with the platform will not be available for at least a year. Tied closely to the company's web browser Chrome, the new Google OS is also named Chrome, and many experts are of the opinion that the new advent has very good chances of posing a challenge to Microsoft's Windows OS.

With Chrome, Google, as has been confirmed by the company, is not looking to offer users a better version of Windows, instead the focus is on shifting them to the firm's version of "cloud computing", a system in which programs are not installed on a PC, but shared over the internet and accessed over browsers.

Users shifting to the Google Chrome operating system will find that their data is residing on servers across the internet. Most internet and PC users already use cloud computing when they access things like e-mail, pictures and digital maps via browsers.

"Hundreds of millions of users are living on the cloud. The trend is very, very clear", said Sundar Pichai, a Vice President for Product Management at Google, currently in-charge of the Chrome OS.

Many experts are of the opinion the Chrome OS will pose a tough competition to Microsoft in the long term, but the latter is not just sitting there, waiting for it to happen. Even Microsoft has started inching towards the cloud computing platform, and the latest development from the firm in this respect came recently via its presentation on the Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud Platform.