Google released a partial list of their Chrome OS partners, and it includes most of the big boys you’d expect, from all sectors of the computing world, from full-featured PCs to netbooks to handhelds, plus Adobe for some Flash support.
The full list: Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments. Google is quick to note that it’s a partial list, but we can see a range from primarily small-form computer makers like ASUS to bigger PCs like HP and Lenovo, and the addition of Qualcomm and TI means they’ve got low-powered chipset makers on board. Adobe is an interesting pull—can we expect heavy use of Flash in the OS’s core?
The biggest name that’s missing is Dell, although smaller PC makers like Sony and Toshiba are also AWOL. We’re not sure what Dell is doing to leave them out of the equation: They make pretty popular netbooks and Chrome OS could be as big a boon for them as anyone else. We’ll keep you updated on future Chrome OS developments. [Chrome Blog]
Stu
July 9, 2009 at 1:45 PM
Importantly I think they need to get Apple on board with a chrome version of itunes. The lack of itunes support will be a breaker for most people I know.
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July 9, 2009 at 8:02 PM
I think this is a good comment.
Previously, in order to gain dominance in a new field (like, say, Online video) – Google has tinkered with something (say, Google Video) but then eventually bought a market leader (like Youtube).
In this situation, I don’t think itunes is for sale. Nor is, say, a big competitor, like Amazon. I did wonder if maybe Pandora would be a good buy, but their recent agreement to pass over 25% of their profits forever probably makes it significantly less awesome value.
I thought Pandora would be a good start, from which Google could probably build a facility to store tracks you already have access to locally.
But itunes has the significant advantage that is the ipod. Almost every music collection gets some sort of play on the go, and the majority by way of an ipod. Anything other than itunes is going to feel superfluous.
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