Google takes on Microsoft’s operating system

Less than a year after taking on Microsoft Corp. in the Internet browser market, Google Inc. announced that it will be going head-to-head with the Redmond, Wash. company in a market with a much bigger impact on its bottom line: the PC operating system business.

It will be called the Google Chrome OS, sharing a brand name with the company's browser. “It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be,” write Google executives in a blog post.

The move puts Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) in direct competition with Windows on PCs, a product responsible for more than half Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) $22 billion in fiscal 2008 operating profits.