Google gets extreme in its push to get users to the cloud with Google Chrome OS. It’s essentially a browser running on a very slim Linux build — so slim, in fact, that you can’t run any native apps on it. Instead, Google is counting on the HTML 5′s enhanced ability to access client machine resources.

The idea of having absolutely no desktop applications may come as a total shocker to some, but it does bring distinct benefits: Chrome OS takes only seven seconds to boot up, and the only security issues you have to worry about are all Web-based. Chrome OS is expected to hit the streets in late 2010, exclusively as an OEM bundle on SSD netbooks. For those of us who don’t like exclusive OEM bundles, the project will also be open-sourced as Chromium OS.

Considering that Web apps still have a long way to go before they completely replace every single desktop app, the one-year wait for Chrome OS should give the rest of the Web time to catch up with Google’s thin-client vision.

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