Google Developing Touchscreen Devices Using Chrome Operating System
Google Inc. has developed the first touchscreen laptops powered by its Chrome operating system to be sold later this year, according to people familiar with the matter, as the Internet giant tries to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google has been steering Chrome OS beyond conventional notebooks since its tablet-version work in 2011, alongside an earlier effort to make Chrome laptops available through a low monthly fee. A November report also pointed to Google's own touchscreen Chrome OS notebook.
The Wall Street Journal report gives that device strategy a clearer competitive frame: touch-enabled Chrome OS hardware would put Google more directly against Microsoft in the laptop operating-system market. The touchscreen-laptop claim remains unconfirmed.
First-order effects
- Google is reportedly broadening Chrome OS from laptop-oriented hardware toward touch-capable devices, giving its platform a more direct comparison with Microsoft Windows.
- Microsoft faces a renewed challenge from Google at the device interface level, rather than only in web browsing.
Second-order effects
- Google's Chrome OS proposition would have to compete on the coherence of touch and laptop use, raising the importance of software experience alongside hardware availability.
- Microsoft's Windows positioning becomes more exposed to comparison with a web-centric alternative as Google brings Chrome OS into a form factor associated with Windows PCs.
Third-order effects
- If Google's reported touchscreen plans materialize, Chrome OS would move toward a broader class of personal-computing devices, narrowing the historical divide between tablet software and laptop software.
- The larger contest shifts from browser share alone to control of the operating system across the devices where people access the web.
The trend: Google is extending Chrome from a browser and low-cost laptop platform toward touch-based personal computing, intensifying its operating-system rivalry with Microsoft.