Parallels Officially Supports Google Chrome OS

Parallels, the virtualization and cloud enabler, has officially announced they’re supporting Chrome OS, Google’s mobile Linux distribution. What does that mean for VARs out there? Maybe nothing, superficially, but…

having official Chrome OS support for Parallels is actually a fairly great thing. It means that customers and partner can get educated on the OS before it goes mainstream — without resorting to underground hacks and tweaks that float around on the Internet. Up until now, many aspiring Chrome OS users relied on pre-compiled code from friendly Linux gurus or a custom-built VMware image that had gained popularity.

There’s also a bigger story here: Parallels provides the base software foundation for many VARs and software developers that are deploying SaaS (software as a service) applications. Now, that SaaS ecosystem may be more inclined to give Google’s Chrome OS a look.

Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac, the latest version will be supporting the new “Guest OS.”

“There is already a huge amount of interest in Google’s new OS, even though it’s still just in beta, so we want to make sure our customers can try it out on their Macs without impacting their primary work environment on Mac OS X,” said Kim Johnston, Vice President of Marketing for Consumer, Business and Online at Parallels. “It’s important to us that we continue to innovate to meet our customers’ needs, giving them the ability to use the broadest range of applications possible, whether on Mac, Windows, Linux or Chrome operating systems.”

And for Google? Well, there’s no official statement from Google, but I’m sure Google is thrilled. Early adoption on this level is extremely beneficial and will most likely lend itself to a near zero-learning curve (on an already nearly zero-learning curve OS) if and when official Chrome OS devices make it to the market. It will also mean that developers can have an easier time trying out code, or web-based developers can now much more easily see how their sites and features will interact with the OS.

For VARs, resellers and partners who may be selling netbook / smartbook solutions, you might want to play with this and get to know the product. Or you might just want to play with it for fun.

Whatever your modus operandi, it’s there and available to you.