The Web changes everything...
I thought this was a good article talking about what ChromeOS may actually accomplish. In particular, I thought this was interesting:
The most promising parts of Office 2010 are the strikingly rich Web versions of Microsoft's Office applications, which will run equally well on Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari (a close cousin to Google's Chrome). Similarly, with Exchange 2010, Microsoft is erasing IE's edge over other browsers and platforms for Outlook Web Access.
As Microsoft (along with everyone else) moves away from the desktop and toward the cloud, they are starting to loosen up on their dependence on trying to force everyone to use the IE browser. If the desktop really does become irrelevant (a big if), then it no longer makes sense to try to use IE as a leverage point to pressure people to use other Microsoft services.
With Chrome OS, Google is doing what other vendors should have done
