[Netscape will] reduce Windows to a poorly debugged set of device drivers running Netscape Navigator.

–Marc Andreesen, 1995

We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we’re announcing a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

–Google Blog, yesterday

If only Marc Andreesen could have seen enough moves ahead to realize that the way to accomplish goal is to (a) build a giant advertising platform to fund development of your free browser and (b) don’t rewrite your codebase from scratch in the middle of the most intense browser war ever.

Google took it to the next level: Don’t even write the core of your browser in the first place, just borrow one from Apple or KDE or whoever.