Google Chrome OS - Do we need another OS?

On Dec 07, 2010, in San Francisco, Google previewed its Chrome OS based hardware.In their previous announcement earlier this year, they had promised the release of the Hardware+Software offering in the form of a Web enabled Chrome OS based Laptop by end of this year. But looks like it will be delayed by a few more months and it will be only by Spring of 2011 that this product will come to public. On a very high level, it is a Black colored Matte finished lightweight Laptop running not a full blown OS but a thin-client like Chrome OS that is essentially a glorified Web Browser. More info is on Google website.
Chrome or Chromium is and OS that Google developed on top of the Linux kernel. The main objectives are Speed, Security and Simplicity. Thus doing away with the usual OS that is sometimes a hindrance to ideal web experience. Note that while "Chrome OS" is an Operating System Look alike (though different in some ways), just "Chrome" (without OS) is just another browser like Firefox or IE. They project that in the coming years, Computing will become more and more Cloud based and networked. So standalone OS, Apps and Utilities will become redundant. Thats where their offering of a complete solution of a laptop that lacks even a traditional hard disk drive is unique. Every Techie knows, hard disk drives are where the traditional OS lives and disk drives are the slowest element in the hardware. So if you do away with those two, there is a lot of Speed gains.
While I like the fact that finally someone had the guts to come out with a complete hardware and software solution based on the Linux kernel, which means there is a great boost to Opensource here, I'm not very sure if throwing yet another OS type out there is a real solution. Note that Google already has another Linux based "Android" that is doing great in the Mobile/Touch screen hardware domain. Time will tell if we really needed another OS (lookalike) or we could have done with the existing OS'es to address the 3S (Speed, Simplicity, Security) challenges out there. At least we have more choices now than going to only the Monopolistic Proprietary OS vendors out there..You know who I'm talking about..One is ugly and bad. The other looks like a half eaten fruit and is Evil nonetheless...