why does anyone really need an operating system?

GooOS, the Google Operating System (kottke.org):

Google isn’t worried about Yahoo! or Microsoft’s search efforts…although the media’s focus on that is probably to their advantage. Their real target is Windows. Who needs Windows when anyone can have free unlimited access to the world’s fastest computer running the smartest operating system?

Hmm, shades of Marc Andreesen wanting to “reduce Windows to a badly debugged set of device drivers” as part of Netscape’s plan to make the OS obsolete.

Jason expands on this article and muses on the notion of Google as an accessible-anywhere information utility that runs on everything, knows everything you do, and is always learning more.

The article he references is worth reading: a former colleague of mine is working on MSFT’s new search effort. If half the stuff in that article is true, it will be interesting to see how things play out.