facebook rss twitter

Google’s Chrome OS may be delayed until next year

by Pete Mason on 23 November 2010, 10:13

Tags: Chrome OS, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qa27s

Add to My Vault: x

Rumours were swirling earlier this month that netbooks powered by Google's Chrome OS would - as the company had suggested earlier this year - be shipping just in time for Christmas. Now, though, it seems like a number of outstanding development issues have delayed the completion of the operating system and will push its release into the new year.

According to The Register the search-giant's CEO, Eric Schmidt, told attendees at the Web 2.0 Summit last week that the platform wouldn't be ready for at least the "next few months". He also made it clear that Chrome OS was designed for devices with a keyboard, and that the company would not be pushing it for use on tablets.

However, when TechCrunch followed up on this with Google, it got a bit of a conflicting response. Reps told the news source that the operating system was definitely still on target for late 2010 availability. When pressed, though, they weren't willing to go into detail on whether this would be a final version or some sort of test release. A bit of snooping revealed that the open-source project still had a number of bugs labelled as 'ReleaseBlock-Beta', indicating that there is still quite a bit of work to do before it's ready for prime-time.

ZDNet's Microsoft blogger Mary-Jo Foley also made some inquiries and seemed to get a similar - if slightly clearer - response from Google, when a representative told her that a pre-release version of Chrome OS was planned for later this year.

At this point, it certainly seems unlikely that we'll see Chrome-powered netbooks in 2010, even if the developers are able to release a final version of the code. However, we're sure that we'll see plenty of announcements at CES in the new year.



HEXUS Forums :: 10 Comments

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!
Chrome OS was designed for devices with a keyboard, and that the company would not be pushing it for use on tablets.

FAIL.

Tablets are the big opening for google, not netbooks.

Android doesn't stretch to them very well, despite several manufacturers trying, and there's really an empty gap in that market left by Apple.
Who wants ChromeOS?
directhex
Who wants ChromeOS?
Google?
mikerr
FAIL. Tablets are the big opening for google, not netbooks. Android doesn't stretch to them very well, despite several manufacturers trying, and there's really an empty gap in that market left by Apple.
Android isn't designed/targetted for netbooks, whereas ChromeOS (supposedly) is. Might be a good idea to check this out details of the OS'es concerned before calling “Fail” on either/both of them. :P

See http://mashable.com/2010/11/15/android-chrome-os/ for a very brief overview, or http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-android-and-chrome-os/ which gives more details, or there's more in-depth discussions around the net.

That out of the way, I'm going to agree with you in that maybe netbooks aren't necessarily a place where Google can make a difference. Windows 7 apparently isn't that bad, Ubuntu UNR is usable, and Meego looks very good so far. So where's the need for yet-another-operating-system - yaos leading to chaos … Plus I've got reservations about the usability of an OS that needs a viable data connection to be able to do anything, so I can't see ChromeOS being appealing to me - I'll gladly trade the (tiny?) bit of extra time that Meego 1.1 takes to boot in return to be able to do docs etc with no network connection.

On the other hand, in the tablet market you've only really got to go up against iOS (unless you're talking about very specialised usages - in which case I'll acknowledge that Windows is also usable). But, as said above, in that sphere you're really supposed to be using Android (I'm assuming normal tablets not some Dell Inspiron Duo clone), preferably Honeycomb (I guess).
crossy
Android isn't designed/targetted for netbooks, whereas ChromeOS (supposedly) is. Might be a good idea to check this out details of the OS'es concerned before calling “Fail” on either/both of them. :P
Easy tiger - I didn't actually mention android in that sentence “Tablets are the big opening for google, not netbooks”
I'm going to agree with you in that maybe netbooks aren't necessarily a place where Google can make a difference.
On the other hand, in the tablet market you've only really got to go up against iOS

But, as said above, in that sphere you're really supposed to be using Android
Android's not for tablets, according to google:
http://androidcommunity.com/android-2-2-is-not-for-tablets-says-google-may-block-app-market-use-20100910/
http://gigaom.com/2010/04/04/google-is-missing-an-android-opportunity-on-non-smartphones/

So they either make googleOS suitable for tablets - which they've just said no to above,
or target android to tablets - which they've discounted before (I suppose we just wait for 3.0)