Google has claimed that the forthcoming Chrome OS will be “indistinguishable from the browser”, as the company seeks to redefine the operating system.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt admitted he was against the creation of Chrome for six years, before being talked around by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

“I just gave up,” Schmidt relates. “But there is no question I am hugely supportive of Chrome and Chrome OS. They are game-changers. They change the way you think about your computer.”

Page also chipped in with a telling vision for Chrome OS claiming: “I wanted the operating system to kind of be out of the way. If you live your life in the browser maybe you don’t want all the stuff that came from Eric’s generation.”

While that was interpreted as a dig at Windows, Page claimed that Google was not positioning itself as a rival to Microsoft. He claimed that the Chrome OS would expand netbook sales, rather than eating into Microsoft’s profits.

Another interesting nugget arrived when Schmidt was asked where the arrival of Chrome OS left Android. “Although it appears they are two separate projects, there’s a great deal of commonality,” he said. “Eventually they may merge even closer.”

Chrome OS is expected in the latter half of 2010.

ANI