• Cnet, Wednesday, July 15, 2009 2 PM

Gates said it was hard to really say much about Chrome OS, since Google has said so little about how it will actually work. "There's many, many forms of Linux operating systems out there and packaged in different ways and booted in different ways," Gates said. "In some ways I am surprised people are acting like there's something new. I mean, you've got Android running on Netbooks. It's got a browser in it."

Gates challenged the notion -- championed by Google -- that the browser needs to act more like an operating system. He said the browser has already become an extremely broad concept. "It just shows the word browser has become a truly meaningless word," Gates said. "What's a browser? What's not a browser? If you're playing a movie, is that a browser or not a browser? If you're doing annotations, is that a browser? If you're editing text, is that a browser or not a browser? In large part, it's more an abuse of terminology than a real change."

Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, in a keynote address on Tuesday, said, "We don't need a new operating system...What we do need to do is to continue to evolve Windows, Windows Applications, IE (Internet Explorer), the way IE works in totality with Windows and how we build applications like Office...and we need to make sure we can bring our customers and partners with us." Later, he added: "The last time I checked you don't need two client operating systems," alluding to Android and Chrome OS. "It's good to have one."

Read the whole story at Cnet »