BY THIS time next year you can have your own Chrome notebook to play with, but for now you may have to be content with the tens of reviews that have appeared on the Internet. As with mobile phones, Google is working hard to make a mark in a different way on the erstwhile notebook.

Google has been working feverishly on its Chrome-for-notebooks platform, which it announced earlier this year.

Unlike the usual operating systems that we have, the Google Chrome OS uses the cloud extensively for everything that you would want to do on your notebook.

It is literally a thin client on the move. So much so, that the Chrome laptop won't work at all if you are not connected to the Internet. And, your interface to the notebook is the well known Chrome browser. Anything can be done on the notebook, as long as it is in the browser. Now, isn’t that exciting?

The Cr-48 notebook that has been given to a select few has received some very interesting reviews.

Reviewers like Techcrunch.com have described it as both “Shiny and Tarnished” at the same time.

The body of the notebook is Macbook-esque with a matte black exterior and island keys. Though most of the keys are well placed, one missing link is the caps-lock key, which has been omitted from the keyboard totally. Instead the notebook has a search key. Also, there are only a few extendable ports. There is only one VGA and one USB port on the notebook. It has in-built 3G and Wi-Fi hardware for connectivity.

One of the biggest reported problems has been with the track pad, which has an inbuilt button. It is reportedly extremely buggy and doesn't work properly at all.

Getting on to the software, the machine boots up in close to 10 seconds and is ready to use for the first time in a few minutes. The set-up process is as easy as connecting to your Google account. Another interesting feature is the online print option for the notebook. For now, you can print on any printer that is connected to a computer with Google Chrome 9. Going forward you may see functionality being built right into printers to support this feature.

But the software is also not without its own problems. For instance, there have been various reports of Adobe Flash slowing down the notebook considerably. But, this is still a proto-type and can be given the benefit of doubt – I am sure these niggles will be solved in time.

Take all this in the enterprise context now – you can see the possibility of a dumb terminal that can be carried anywhere by the employees and is dependent on your servers for doing anything. With data on the move being close to ubiquitous, most of your employees can be powered by such devices easily. Just that, Google has not announced an enterprise plan for these things yet.

For me, these are great signs of things to come that are going to change the way we implement IT in an enterprise. Be it the tablet devices, or cloud powered notebooks, be ready for your world to be rocked to the core. The cloud is getting bigger and bigger.

THE AUTHOR IS Executive Editor, CTO Forum