> If Chrome is to be a platform, it's going to need a shell with a rich interface to manage multiple applications and allow them to interact with each other. It's also going to need an ecosystem and the people it needs in that ecosystem use OSX and Linux. Making it inflexible or "hiding" it are the exact wrong things to do.

I'm certainly not the one in charge of directing Google's vision but it would seem to logical to me that they are not interested in creating a new 'platform' in the sense that xul is a platform. As far as I can see, the purpose of Chrome is to promote web apps as a reasonable alternative to desktop apps.