Google Reportedly Will Fold Chrome Into Android Operating System

Google reportedly is folding its Chrome operating system into its Android operating system as the company attempts to reduce the number of independent platforms it needs to maintain.

Sources familiar with the matter told the The Wall Street Journal that Google will show off a new operating system in 2017 that will run on PCs in addition to smartphones.

Stephen Monteros, vice president of business development and strategic initiatives at Sigmanet, an Ontario, Calif.-based solution provider that resells devices running on Chrome, said he was unsure what the report, if true, would mean for his company.

[Related: IDC: 5 Worldwide Smartphone Vendors With The Highest Q3 Shipments]

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"On the education side, we're deploying tens of thousands of devices using Google Chrome, so we're not sure how that will be impacted [by this report] yet," said Monteros. "The Chrome OS is very clean and has nice applications and, because it's so clean and simple, it's very easy to manage. Android gives a lot more freedom to developers, and we look at them differently."

Both Chrome OS and Android are based on Linux. Android, targeted at smartphones, touts better application support while Chrome, targeted at laptops and PCs, is more secure, as no credible breaches into the OS have been discovered.

According to a forecast released by market research firm IDC, smartphones running on Android are dominating are expected to take up 81.1 percent of the smartphone market in 2015.

Rumors have long been circulating that Mountain View, Calif.-based Google would package the two operating systems together. In September, Google unveiled the Pixel C, the first Pixel tablet to run on Android as opposed to the lineup's traditional Chrome operating system.

While solution providers remain unclear on what the implications are for folding Chrome into the Android OS, they stressed that security needs to be a top priority for an operating system that reaches both laptops and smartphones.

"Security needs to be the primary factor for any computing platform, so a move to have Android power personal computers brings that point to the forefront," said Douglas Grosfield, president and CEO of Xylotek Solutions, a Cambridge, Ontario-based solution provider. "It has been a difficult process for IT departments to gain meaningful control over ‎the disparate technologies BYOD has presented in the workplace. I sincerely hope it isn't that same carefree naivety that rules the day when corporate PCs may potentially run on a platform that by its very nature makes it more difficult to enforce corporate policies and standards."

According to The Wall Street Journal report, Chromebooks also will get a new, undetermined name.

PUBLISHED OCT. 30, 2015