NO Chrome for Android

The Browser Will Not Be Available For Phones, Tablets As Of Now

Google Inc will keep the focus of its chrome operating system on notebooks, and has no immediate plan to make it available on tablets or to merge with its popular Android software for smartphones, said a senior executive. Chrome users doubled over the past year to about 160 million.

Sunder Pichai, Google's senior vice president for Chrome, told a news conference on Tuesday during the computer PC show in Taipei. "We are entirely focused on the notebook form factor for now. We have no other plans at this time" Pichai said in response to a question on whether Chrome would also be available for tablet PC's.

NEW CHROME LAPTOP

Web-centric PC laptops, made by Sansung Electronics Co Ltd and Acer Inc using Chrome will go on sale in June, challenging Microsoft and Apple Inc.

The bare-bones operating system is essentially a web browser that steers users to applications such as email and spreadsheets directly on web, instead of using software stored on the PC's. Some analysts said it would be some time before Chrome could revolutionise the PC world in the same way that Google's Android operating system did for mobile devices.

The big issue is whether Google has the marketing and focus to position the Chrome PC to compete head on with the established full-OS laptop and tablet players in the summer computing market.

Steve Hodgkinson, IT research director for Asia Pacific.

Growing Market
The fast-growing market for smartphones and tablets using Google's Android operating system has led some observers to say that Google should merge it with Chrome. But Pichai dismissed such speculation. "We think it's distinctive of all other operating systems out there, so there are no current plan to converge this with anything else," he said.