Google Chrome OS And Android "Will Likely Converge" Says Sergey Brin

Back in July, Google's execs were grudgingly agreeing that Google Chrome OS and Android have "a great deal of commonality" and "may merge even closer."  Now co-founder Sergey Brin has further stoked that speculation, telling reporters after last week's Chrome OS reveal that "Android and Chrome will likely converge over time".  Brin pointed to the common Linux and Webkit browser code as existing points of convergence in the two open-source platforms.

Google PR have been quick to quash any talk of the merge happening anytime soon, however:

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" Google statement

Of course, Google Chrome OS is still twelve months away from shipping netbooks, while Android is storming ahead on not only smartphones but MIDs, UMPCs and other portable devices.

[via ZDNet]