In wake of merger reports, Google says it’s “committed” to Chrome OS

The Chrome logo on the lid of the Chromebook 13. (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Yesterday, a report from the Wall Street Journal claimed that Chrome OS and Android will be merged into a single unified OS, which will be demoed next year and released sometime in 2017. The report said that Chrome will be "folded" into Android, leading many to believe that Chrome OS will be killed off.

Late last night, Hiroshi Lockheimer, the new senior vice president of Android and Chrome OS (and the man who would presumably be in charge of any kind of merger) took to Twitter to profess Google's support for Chrome OS.

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!

- Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) October 30, 2015

Saying Google is "committed" to Chrome OS is a far walk from saying "The WSJ report is wrong." With the Journal reporting that the project won't be finished until 2017, Google can't have the public think that Chrome OS will be spending the next two years on death row. It has Chromebooks to sell, and customers won't invest in Chrome OS hardware if they think it's a dying platform. So even if Chrome OS were on the way out, good business sense says that Google would have to be "committed" to the platform until it has something new to take its place.

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