Is Android folding into Chrome OS?
Sundar Pichai boss of Chrome OS is taking over reins of Android from Andy Rubin, and Andy stays with Google, but at what level not sure though. Is Google accepting Desktop/Laptop are going to stay for a lot more years and mobility is a dream when you take the total picture of computing that includes everything from Mainframes to devices and there is no Post PC like Steve Jobs said and some of ZDNet bloggers think that this is Post PC era?
zdnet.com/google-looks-to-beat-microsoft-to-the-os-consolidation-punch-7000012564
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saiweb
Mobile Gadget Geek. My mobility started with HP Jornada Handheld PC LX320. I currently own and use various Windows Phones, iOS devices, Android devices and HP Touchpad.
6 Comments
According to Sundar Pichai, the answer is no: “We’re comfortable at Google with two viewpoints, and we are doing both.”
According to Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet, the answer is yes: “The expectation is Android and Chrome will become one.” She doesn’t identify whose expectation she’s talking about. She cites AllThingsD which says the change in leadership “raises the perennial question.”
According to you, a bunch of question marks.
yes, I read Sundar Pichai’s comment and that contradicts whatever Mary Jo and ATD are saying. And this consolidates that Post PC dream is just dream of few of ZDNet Bloggers such as AKH and some other bloggers on the blogosphere, I think.
If MS really does create its own phone, and it and the Surfaces do well, yes, I would say Chrome/Android merging could become more of a reality. As of now, I don’t see it.
ChromeOS’s selling point is that it’s as simple as it gets, no maintenance, very little to learn, do everything in a browser like you generally do anyway which improves over time along with the things you can use it to do. If you move that in the direction of Android, you begin to lose that selling point, the thing that makes it unique, a notebook whose reason to be is to run the lovely evolving Chrome browser. The Chromebook is Chrome, period — plus some hardware and a login screen. It seems to be taking off, slowly. Why would they want to merge it into Android somehow?
And if you move Android toward ChromeOS, well, firstly why would you do that — Android ain’t broke, indeed it’s doing quite well, somehow Google has the resources to keep rolling with Android and ChromeOS at the same time and things like Chrome for Android, perhaps making SDKs that let developers stamp out software that works both on ChromeOS and Android through their respective app stores is the sort of thing that may happen if it hasn’t already, along with Chrome for Android continuing to improve.
Google’s in a pretty different position from Microsoft. It doesn’t have a ubiquitous PC operating system that shares a name with its server operating systems with a few decades’ worth of software to have to be able to run to try to carry that name, look and feel to tablets to hybrids to RTs to phablets to phones. Microsoft’s locked into that, maybe not the best place to be trapped, got to make way too many compromises from what I’ve read. Also, the Chrome and Android brands are formidable things, why ditch either without any compelling reason.
Chromebooks? Pet project, or former pet project, that’s gaining serious traction and seems to have a lot of Google’s attention directed at it. All work they direct at Chrome falls into ChromeOS and Chromebooks. And they’re applying some things they’ve learned from Android, like the Nexus line, to Chromebooks, coming up with this Pixel thing they probably knew won’t be a blockbuster — but would get plenty of press and perhaps show both consumers and OEMs that Chrome needn’t necessarily be pigeonholed into $200 laptops. Imagine designing and launching a laptop, something you’ve never done before let alone do remarkably well, just to try to make that point. ChromeOS is young and has a ways to go and it’s getting interesting, but it ain’t broke either.
I’m not sure what people think they mean when they say it’s looking like Google’s going to “merge” the two platforms. What does that mean?