- No Chrome OS on Tablets
Having lived through the horrors of having multiple versions of Android, Google is limiting where and how the Chrome OS can be used. Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior VP of Chrome OS, said that Google is setting the parameters for the Chromebooks from Acer and Samsung, even down to their components.
He also said the Chrome OS could not be used on tablets, which will have to live with all those versions of Android to pick from. There are no plans, he said, to merge Android and Chrome.
The Chrome OS strategy also proves that Apple chief Steve Jobs was right when he warned Google about the fragmentation of Android.
The control is far greater, as best we can tell, than anything Microsoft ever did. It sounds like what Apple might do if it were licensing its technology.
“We verified every component,” Pichai said at a press conference at Computex.
Pichai said tight parameters are necessary because of the subscription model Google will use to get businesses and schools to use Chromebooks. It needs the highest levels of security.
Another very un-Android move is that Google will slow the pace at which new Chromebooks can be engineered. It will also limit the freedom hardware makers have for adding innovative features, which hardware makers use to differentiate their products.
Pichai said this is the start of the program, and Google will eventually loosen up and offer equipment makers more options.
He said Google is opening a technical office in Taiwan to work with manufacturers there to address these issues. Samsung, of course, is headquartered in South Korea but may have products made in Taiwan.
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