It has been a whole six months since we first clapped our eyes on Chrome OS, but within weeks Acer chairman JT Wang had confirmed his company’s admiration for the platform, and promised a machine running it for 2H 2010. It looks like he may be about to deliver…
VentureBeat says “multiple sources” have confirmed Acer will launch the first “Chrome OS devices” at Taipei’s Computex show which takes place from 1 – 5 June. Sadly, all these sources then decided to shut their previously talkative mouths, since no further information was forthcoming about what kinds of devices these would be.
Logic suggests the prerequisite netbook/smartbook, and given Acer’s predilection for mobile computing, a tablet wouldn’t be too much of a stretch either. Fitting small, fast solid state drives would also seem wise given the platform’s extreme focus on cloud computing – but we’ll leave any further speculation to others.
In the bigger picture, Chrome OS causes something of a quandary for consumers and manufacturers and even Google itself. For customers, they need to trust in a new way of computing, for manufacturers they need to decide what form factors Chrome OS suits and indeed what hardware goes inside (Intel for a netbook assault or ARM to push the smartbook model?).
For Google Chrome OS also represents the potential problem of overlap. Until now, Android has been going great guns on handsets even surpassing iPhone sales in Q1, but Android also runs on netbooks and tablets, both form factors already considered for Chrome. So does Google steer clear of Android’s success or push on with its real goal of promoting cloud computing in as many sectors as possible – even if it comes at Android’s expense?
It is a discussion we’ve had before. Come Computex 2010 we may finally find out…
Gordon
Update: Acer took the unusual step May 17 of issuing a formal denial via press release, that it had any short-term plans for releasing Chrome-OS-based hardware. The company confirmed it was interested in the operating system, however.
