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Google Hardware Makes Cuts To Laptop and Tablet Development, Cancels Products (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A report from Business Insider claims that Google has axed "dozens" of employees from its laptop and tablet division. BI's sources describe the move as "roadmap cutbacks" and also say that Google will likely "pare down the portfolio" in the future. Google's Hardware division is run by Rick Osterloh and is expected to launch a game streaming console later this month. The division is responsible for the Pixel phones, Google Home speakers, the Chromecast, Google Wi-Fi, and lately, the Nest smart home division.
You could also call the "laptop and tablet" division the "Chrome OS" division. Both the Pixelbook and Pixel Slate ran Chrome OS, and they are the company's only products supporting that operating system. Is Chrome OS going to be OK? BI notes that manufacturing roles in the hardware division haven't changed, so in the short-term, Google's product lineup is likely to keep going. The report says that Google had "a bunch of stuff in the works" that now probably won't see the light of day. The move comes after the group received pressure to turn Google Hardware into "a real business" from higher-ups at Google/Alphabet. It's easy to imagine that the laptops and tablets -- which are Google Hardware's most expensive products -- were selling the worst.
You could also call the "laptop and tablet" division the "Chrome OS" division. Both the Pixelbook and Pixel Slate ran Chrome OS, and they are the company's only products supporting that operating system. Is Chrome OS going to be OK? BI notes that manufacturing roles in the hardware division haven't changed, so in the short-term, Google's product lineup is likely to keep going. The report says that Google had "a bunch of stuff in the works" that now probably won't see the light of day. The move comes after the group received pressure to turn Google Hardware into "a real business" from higher-ups at Google/Alphabet. It's easy to imagine that the laptops and tablets -- which are Google Hardware's most expensive products -- were selling the worst.
Microsoft adopts Chrome software, maybe Google's adopting Surface hardware?
While at Google, working on Chrome team, we could get a Chromebook Pixel (the original ones) to use and "eat the dogfood". Lovely device, even when it was like four year old, so when I left I set out to replace it. I ended up with an Asus Chromebook Flip C302A, the second option was a Samsung Chromebook Pro. Why not a newer Chromebook Pixel or Pixelbook? Because they cost 2x as much for minimal advantage.
Do I wish I had 8GB of RAM? Sure! But 8GB of RAM runs around $60. If they had had an offering in the $600 range, or maybe $700, I'd have probably went for it.
Unfortunately, they have the last laugh, since Apple has decided to cripple their laptop keyboard and port arrays, so now I find myself with Windows laptops in the house. Sigh.
is all about the ads.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Attention deficit disorder. Google seems to have lost the ability to see any project through from beginning to end. I look forward to the Google console fiasco, should be about as popular as Google+ given the depth to which Google Smart People[tm] tend to understand or care about actual people.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Pixelbook or Pixel Slate to work reliably (more than a year for the Pixelbook), maybe hardware's not the right niche for them.