Anyone who's interested in using Google's first operating system shouldn't have to wait too much longer to give it a try.  Earlier today, at Computex Tapei, a vice president of product management at Google indicated Chrome OS will launch in "late fall" this year.

Google doesn't intend to put out a buggy beta product that will hobble along, frustrating early adopters, either.  Sundar Pichai explained, "We will be selective on how we come to market because we want to deliver a great user experience.  We're thinking on both the hardware and software levels."

According to Reuters, Pichai then continued, "Chrome OS is one of the few future operating systems for which there are already millions of applications that work.  You don't need to redesign Gmail for it to work on Chrome.  Facebook does not need to write a new app for Chrome."

And here's one other thing to consider: this talk of Chrome OS's release comes quite soon after reports about Google abandoning Windows began to circulate, meaning some serious "dogfooding" may be set to take place.

Pichai said Google's intention is just to have Chrome OS work on laptops at first, though, so don't expect the launch of the operating system to represent a full-scale attack at every level of the PC market.