Google Chrome OS & Android to “converge over time”

When Google Chrome OS was first announced, many questioned the strategy of needing two operating systems one for smartphones (Android) and the other for netbooks/smartbooks (Google Chrome OS). It appears that this point hasn’t been lost with Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google. He has said that at some point down the road both the Android and Google Chrome operating systems will merge into a single OS.

Both operating systems have common Linux and Webkit code that should enable the transition. “Android and Chrome will likely converge over time,” said Brin at a Chrome OS presentation last Thursday. However, realistically, this is some time away as Google is currently concentrating developing each fledgling platform separately. Whilst Android is already on smartphones, Chrome OS isn’t expected to appear until Q4 2010.

It seems that not all Google staff are singing to the same hymn sheet though. Google recently released a statement in response to questions about the two operating systems and said this: “As Sundar [Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management] said in his presentation, we’re reaching a perfect storm of converging trends where computers are behaving more like mobile devices, and phones are behaving more like small computers. Having two open source operating systems from Google provides both users and device manufacturers with more choice and helps contribute a wealth of new code to the open source community.”

Check out the 19-minute interview below. The Android and Chrome OS action starts at the 16:30 mark.

Via Cnet.