Chrome doom: Google's Web-based OS could kill whole industries

Google (GOOG) likes to blow up entire industries. Two weeks ago, the search giant dropped a bomb on the GPS industry with the release of its free and open-source voice-activated navigation app -- sorry, Garmin (GRMN) and TomTom. Google is also in the process of blowing up the productivity applications business with its Google Apps offering, a suite of online email, word processing and other tools that costs a fraction of the price of Windows Office and other Microsoft (MSFT) software.

Today, Google's new Chrome browser-based OS came into clearer focus, and from the looks of it, Google may be en route to blowing up a handful of other businesses.