An operating system in a window

I was wondering who'd spot this first. So far as I can see, it was Lubos Motl:

In fact, it is not only a new browser. It is probably a beta version of the new "operating system" that Google wants to use to take over the world.

My head start is that ten years ago it was part of the plot of a novel I was Peter Cooking.

Peter Cook drew a cartoon once. Two people at a party. One says "I'm writing a novel". The other replies, "Neither am I".

Back to the real world, Google's new browser looks interesting. There's been speculation it will hurt Firefox. Nope. First, it's structured so that Mozilla can use the bits they like, especially, and most importantly, the javascript virtual machine. Secondly, Firefox is an application development framework in which a web browser was implemented. Mozilla were there first. They're on the bus. There's one company that can't afford to get on it. They're the ones who are hurting.

Can you guess who?

UPDATE: I'm going to hedge that. Mozilla could very well suffer some immediate collateral damage (I'm waiting with bated breath for a Linux/Unix version of Chrome), but how's that going to affect their income stream from a free browser? They have paved the way for Google's Chrome by getting people used to the idea of downloading a browser. Google has so much more penetration that they'll get people even more used to that. Given a future leapfrog from the Mozilla foundation and this added penetration will help them.

But both Firefox and Chrome break the Microsoft paradigm, and that's only going to hurt one company.

UPDATE: Bumped up from the comments - Obnoxio has some important things to say about Chrome's trustworthiness. Thanks, Obnoxio.