HP's first Chromebook revealed in leaked spec sheet
HP is preparing to launch its first entry into the Chromebook marketplace, if a PDF found on its site can be believed. According to this listing, HP's currently-unannounced Pavilion Chromebook will feature a 1.1GHz Celeron processor …
Context & Ripple Effects
The leak lands at a delicate moment for HP: its November 2012 Q4 report showed declining sales and an $8.8 billion charge, even as PC chief Todd Bradley publicly dismissed Microsoft's Surface as hardly competition and the company pushed Windows 8 hardware like the ElitePad 900 business tablet slated for January.
Against that backdrop, a spec sheet PDF left on HP's own site pointing to an unannounced Pavilion Chromebook — a 1.1GHz Celeron machine that would be HP's first Chrome OS device — reads less like an accident and more like a hedge: the widest-traveled hardware story of the day, picked up by SlashGear, BGR, 9to5Google, InfoWorld and others, suggests real appetite for confirmation that a flagship Windows OEM is willing to ship Google's OS.
First-order effects
- If the Pavilion Chromebook ships as listed, HP's consumer lineup gains a low-cost Chrome OS option built on Intel's Celeron, putting a Google-branded OS on shelves beside its Windows 8 machines for the first time.
Second-order effects
- An HP entry would force a clearer answer to the question its own executives dodged when brushing off Surface: whether the company's loyalty to Microsoft's platform strategy survives contact with cheaper, Google-aligned alternatives in the same price band.
Third-order effects
- If a Windows-first OEM of HP's scale commits to Chromebooks, the Wintel assumption that PC makers ride one OS per generation weakens further, pushing vendors toward multi-OS portfolios and giving Google leverage over notebook pricing from the software side.
The trend: Major PC manufacturers are hedging their Windows dependence by adding Chrome OS hardware, turning operating system choice into a portfolio decision rather than a default.