HTC Working With Google On a Chrome OS Tablet
Everyone is clamoring about tablets these days—ourselves included—so it is not too surprising that Google and HTC are reportedly working together to join the fray with a Chrome OS Google Tablet. — Smarthouse, an Australian publication …
Context & Ripple Effects
The tablet rumor mill heading into January 2010 has been running almost entirely on Apple anticipation, with HTC's own [[a:none|tablet ambitions]] already on record — a December 31, 2009 relationship note says the company confirmed plans for a slate rivaling Apple's iSlate. The Smarthouse report now attaches a second, Google-branded track to that same hardware effort.
What makes the pairing plausible rather than idle speculation is timing: Google's Chrome OS had surfaced only as rumored netbook specifications in late December 2009, while the Chrome browser itself just overtook Safari to become the world's third-most-used browser. A tablet would carry an eighteen-month-old browser franchise into a device category where Google has no announced hardware presence.
First-order effects
- HTC would run two parallel tablet programs — its own confirmed iSlate rival and a Google-designed Chrome OS device — splitting engineering and supply commitments across two operating systems.
- Google would move Chrome OS beyond the rumored high-performance netbook form factor into touchscreen hardware, testing whether a keyboardless web-centric OS can ship at all.
Second-order effects
- Apple's expected iSlate launch would set the pricing and capability benchmark both HTC slates must meet, pressuring HTC to differentiate on carrier deals or price rather than apps.
- If Google ships branded hardware through HTC, other Android handset makers face the precedent of Google favoring a single manufacturing partner in new categories.
Third-order effects
- A Chrome OS tablet would push the browser-from-operating-system logic past netbooks into post-PC devices, betting that web apps can substitute for native software on slates.
- Repeated Google-plus-single-OEM pairings across device types would restructure the hardware market around a few favored manufacturing partners rather than open OS licensing.
The trend: Browser makers are extending web-centric operating systems from netbooks into tablets, with Google leaning on a single hardware partner rather than building devices itself.