Chrome OS is a good long-term (10-year) play. Google is betting that mobile computing will become smartphone (Android/iPhone/WebOS) and netbook (Chrome OS) dominated, and laptops will mostly disappear. I can see it — I already stopped bringing a laptop on trips and do most communication & reading from my iPhone day-to-day. A netbook will do for most other work: documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc., or you can use a public workstation if you’re on Google Docs or equivalent. Both the cloud and better mobile computing technologies will make the power-user laptop irrelevant, but it will probably take 5-10 years. The only reason I would need one is for code, and virtualization might take care of that case, too.

The only issue here is Google’s ability to focus and be patient. They have plenty of resources to support this, but if someone mounts a significant attack on the search front, I wonder if they can make progress on search, Android, and Chrome OS all at once.

In any case, they HAVE to do this.  If and when someone beats them at search, their golden goose will die.  They know this is coming (again, think 10 years out), and they need a foothold in something BIG to manage the risk.  Hence, Android for smartphones and Chrome OS for netbooks.  If and when the cloud, smartphones, and netbooks all mature, mobile computing will just be “computing” — Google wants to be there as it happens.