Just as Kangal hinted towards, it's worth noting that using the web as a platform also levels the playing field. For example, a Windows machine would be just as effective as an Android Machine which would be just as effective as a MeeGo machine. In other words, just as with the web currently, the underlying OS matters less and less for similar degrees of functionality. Meanwhile, technologies like NaCl ensure that we can maintain the diversity of development language and environment to target this new platform, and that the environment will exist beyond the chrome browser!

For companies, this increases competition (yes, I understand the argument business-problems with device commoditization (is that a word?)), but the consumer benefits in the end, and companies must always innovate and execute to maintain profitability anyhow.

But it's not going to happen overnight -- not by a long shot. Still, it's an interesting spin on traditional OSs and application distribution that has some real perks.