There is a general misconception that ChromeOS, on the Acer-made CR-48, pilot program is for “Geeks”, “Tech-Kids” and the like.  This could not be further from the truth.  The ChromeOS pilot program involves much more than meets the eye and is, in my humble opinion, an extraordinary marketing program, the likes of which have never been seen.

Several sources, including  Irina Slutsky’s article on Advertising Age® state, “Along with thousands of random and unaffiliated pilot beta testers, the following corporate workers will be helping Google get a shine on the Chrome: reservation agents at American Airlines; the engineering, sales and marketing teams of Logitech; the sales team and store employees of Jason’s Deli; the hotel suites and call centers of Intercontinental Hotel Group; the production line employees at Kraft Foods; and every single employee of Virgin America — including the pilots.”  Yes, I too hope that it is not while flying!

Even Oracle joined the cloud this week by Oracle Announcing Cloud Office that will be handled by Database.Com.  Not too shabby for a cloud system that “will never fly”, a common naysayers statement.

It’s amazing to me that some think they don’t use the “cloud”.  I wrote an article on my site. “What’s Your gMail?” that lists many ways people already do.

The next misconception is that the beta is the CR-48 when , in fact, the beta is the Google cloud infrastructure AND the the CR-48 (client).  Perfect examples of this would be Cloud Print and, most definitely Flash.

Many tend to forget that this pilot program is beta.  Google says on it’s pilot program page, “The Pilot program is not for the faint of heart.  Things might not always work just right.”  It is also stated that “Chrome OS is for people who live on the web.”  It’s not for everyone. (Take the quiz on Google to see if that’s you).

They call it Beta.  I call it an awesome opportunity to be a part of what could be the way of the Internets future.  People who are serious about this experiment don’t care what is being said by the naysayers, skeptics and “fanboys/girls” of other operating systems. For us it is about being a part of an effort to make the Internet a better place through trial and error.  The people who put in the work.

* This article was created and posted using Google ChromeOS and the Google ChromeOS netbook cr-48.