Google reportedly gearing up to launch its own, 12.85-inch Chrome OS touch notebook in Q1 2013
According to news outlets in Asia, Google is set to follow its rivals and launch an own-brand Chrome OS-powered 12.85-inch touch notebook in the first quarter of 2013.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second time Google has been reported readying its own Chrome OS machine: back in late 2010, sources pointed to a Google-branded Chrome OS netbook launching that December, after specs leaked as early as 2009. What is different now is the form factor — a 12.85-inch touchscreen — which tracks Google's earlier move to build a tablet version of Chrome OS and mirrors the industry-wide pivot to touch hardware following Windows 8's arrival.
The report, sourced to Asian supply-chain outlets and picked up by Engadget, TechCrunch, CNET, The Register and others, remains unconfirmed by Google. It lands just as partner-built Chromebooks like Acer's budget C7 are hitting shelves, so an own-brand device would put Google in direct competition with the very vendors it relies on to carry the OS.
First-order effects
- If the Q1 2013 launch happens, Google shifts from pure software licensor to first-party hardware maker in laptops, competing head-to-head with Acer and Samsung Chromebook partners while setting a reference design for touch on Chrome OS.
- Google's own-brand entry would follow the same playbook Microsoft used with Surface, answering rival platforms' touch-first hardware pushes with a controlled showcase device.
Second-order effects
- Chromebook OEMs face the classic channel conflict: they must keep manufacturing Chrome OS machines for Google while watching Google take the premium, high-margin end of the category with a 12.85-inch touch panel.
- Touch-panel and display suppliers gain a new large-volume customer if Google's order book materializes, tightening component supply just as every PC maker chases touch screens for Windows 8.
Third-order effects
- A confirmed Google laptop would cement the post-PC pattern of platform owners building reference hardware themselves, pressuring PC OEMs into commodity tiers or deeper differentiation away from the OS vendor's own devices.
- It would also mark Chrome OS's second identity shift — from the cloud-only netbook concept of 2009-2010 specs to a touch-capable portable — testing whether the browser-as-OS thesis survives contact with tablet-style interaction.
The trend: Platform owners are increasingly building their own flagship hardware to define their operating systems, pulling them into competition with the OEM partners who distribute those platforms.