Dell eyes Chrome OS for laptops

Dell has expressed interest in loading Google’s upcoming Chrome operating system on future laptops.

“We have to have a point of view on the industry and technology direction two years, three years down the road, so we continuously work with Google on this,” Amit Midha, Dell’s president for Greater China and South Asia told Reuters.

“There are going to be unique innovations coming up in the marketplace in two, three years, with a new form of computing, we want to be on that forefront…So with Chrome or Android or anything like that we want to be one of the leaders.”

It should be noted that a number of industry heavyweights are reportedly prepping Chrome-based devices, including Acer and Hewlett Packard.

Indeed, the above-mentioned OEMs were recently spotted in the Chromium OS Git repository by Lee Mathews of Download Squad.

“The overlay-x86 bits take care of configuring Chrome’s hardware support during the build process – so these would seem to indicate that…Acer and HP might be at the point where they’re building the OS for specific configs,” wrote Mathews.

“Apart from the conspicuous files, all…have already been connected to Chrome OS in some way…[For example], HP is tinkering with Cloud Print – which will feature prominently in Chrome OS.”

Mathews also noted that Acer could theoretically be “trying [to] cram” a Chrome OS dual boot option onto a future netbook.

“[Still], they already tried an Android/Windows combo with the AOD250, but that didn’t turn out so well,” he added.