Acer working with Google to deliver Chrome OS next year

Posted on 14 Oct 2009 at 15:25

According to Jim Wong, Acer's President of IT Products Global Operations, Acer is working with Google on Chrome OS and plans on announcing the fruits of the collaboration next year.

At a press conference in Central London, Acer's CEO and President Gianfranco Lanci, said Chrome is a "viable alternative to Windows operating systems for web applications on different mobile devices". Chrome OS is rumoured to be a stripped-down Linux distribution, using Google's Chrome browser as the interface for web services.

With the launch of a dual-boot Windows 7 and Android netbook later this month, and an Android smartphone at the end of November, Acer looks to be hedging its bets between an open source, Google-based strategy and its traditional relationship with Microsoft on PCs and mobiles. Lanci talked about offering customers a homogeneous environment across all devices, and Acer's plans to ship its Android phones with Acer Sync 1.0 hints that it may develop its own user interface on top of Android. By adopting Chrome OS, Acer would have more freedom to bring this user interface to the desktop as well.

A Linux-based, open-source strategy would also make sense if this customisation extended to other devices, such as TVs, which have more hardware restrictions. Lanci sees more convergence between PCs and phones in the future, and a more flexible OS strategy would suit devices that fall between netbooks and smartphones.

Author: Barry de la Rosa

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