According to the Wall Street Journal yesterday afternoon (October 29th), Google will be “folding” Chrome into Android. There is certainly some complicated technicality to how they’re going to do this, but ultimately, this means that Android won.
But moving away from any sort of competition between Android and Chrome, and to a developer point of view, it is a good idea to combine the two operating systems to minimize fragmentation. Despite the idea behind fragmentation, Google and their OEM partners had considerable success with Chromebooks. But unfortunately for Chomebook, Android, the global dominant computing platform, their sales are looking pretty sad in comparison.
There’s the believe among some folks that “folding” Chrome into Android isn’t just a simple merger, but another way of “killing off” Chrome. WSJ says that Google engineers are creating a hybrid operating system:
Google engineers have been working for roughly two years to combine the operating systems and have made progress recently, two of the people said. The company plans to unveil its new, single operating system in 2017, but expects to show off an early version next year, one of the people said.
This merger between Chrome and Android can be considered another step for Microsoft, who is doing a sing “responsive” Windows OS approach. This could work out well for Microsoft, although in compassion, Apple has gone the opposite route with the creation of overlapping yet distinct OS for Macs, mobile devices, Apple Watches, and the Apple TV.
The advantage that this new hybrid OS will have is access to Google Play apps.
WSJ said that “Chromebooks will get a new, as yet undetermined name,” while Chrome will stay the name of Google’s popular browser.