Last week, a report published originally by the Wall Street Journal and picked up by the tech media at large, claimed that Google is looking to merge its cloud-based desktop operating system Chrome with the world’s largest mobile operating platform Android within the next year and a half. While various commentators made their opinions be known about the supposed merger of the two, Google’s recently-appointed SVP of Android, Chrome OS and Chromecast, Mr. Hiroshi Lockheimer, took to Twitter late last week, to deny any merger plans and reaffirm the company’s commitment to Chrome OS. According to the post on his official Twitter account, @lockheimer, “There’s a ton of momentum for Chromebooks and we are very committed to Chrome OS. I just bought two for my kids for schoolwork!”.
The interest regarding the issue however, doesn’t seem to have died down for obvious reasons, and now the executive chairman of Google’s recently-incorporated parent company Alphabet, Mr. Eric Schmidt, seems to have added fuel to the already raging fiery debate all over the net (and beyond) as to whether the two operating systems should actually be merged into one unified platform that works equally well on desktops as well as mobile devices. According to Mr. Schmidt, who was speaking at the Beijing summit of TechCrunch, “Technology can move forward where it’s possible you can wrap one into the other … I think the distinctions that are so hardcoded today are allowed to become less hardcoded”. While Mr. Schmidt didn’t quite put all speculations to rest with his latest comments on the issue, his comments does seem to indicate that Google isn’t exactly averse to the idea of a unified platform, if and when that becomes feasible without many compromises.
While Google’s engineers are believed to be working on ways to somehow find a way to solve the issue of running two platforms side-by-side, the company has thus far officially denied any attempts to combine the two platforms. Which is what makes Monday’s statement from Eric Schmidt all the more relevant, even though it falls far short of a clear admission that Google is moving towards that route. It’s difficult to ascertain at this stage from the outside looking in, as to what actually is going on internally at Google, or if all the leading decision makers within the company are even on the same page regarding the issue. Only time will tell which way the tech giant from Mountain View will go with its two very distinct but popular operating platforms, and if one day we’ll indeed see a unified OS that will actually work seamlessly on both desktops as well as on mobiles.