ChromeOS is years before its time. It's an aspirational operating system where Android is a realistic one. That also means that it's a little early to pass judgment.
If you judge the user base or commercial success it's pretty easy to pass judgment and say it failed. I can't even buy one on amazon.de!
If you assume ChromeOS will be maintained for years to come by Google (because they can afford it) and it will be improved then it might have a chance of becoming something big.
So the only reason you say it's 'early' is because you assume Google will keep it alive long enough to have a fighting chance.
Maybe, but the question remains, is it viable now? Is Firefox OS viable now? The answer to both is an emphatic no. However it's felt more in regards to Mozilla as they don't have the resources to build Firefox OS and maintain Firefox along with other projects like Thunderbird. Android still doesn't have a good open source mail program and the port of Thunderbird was a hope.
