Google Chrome to partner with Acer, Adobe, HP

Google will team up with a number of PC makers, wireless chip developers and software companies to develop and launch its new Chrome operating system.

Google will partner with Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Toshiba — among others — to develop devices that can work with Chrome, according to a glob post Wednesday evening.

The goal is "to design and build devices that deliver an extraordinary end user experience," the post on the Chrome site said.

The opened-sourced operating system will be available free of charge.

Google announced Wednesday that it will be releasing the Chrome OS — based on the browser of the same name — to consumers in the second half of 2010.

"Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds," Sundar Pichai, Google's vice-president of product management, and Linus Upson, Google's engineering director, said in a joint blog post.

The Linux-based operating system will initially be targeted at netbooks — the smaller, no-frills, low-cost version of the laptop.

The diverse list of partners announced Wednesday offers hints of Google's strategy for the launch and growth of Chrome.

Acer and Asus are the two top netbook manufacturers in the world. The partnership with chip-makers like Qualcomm or Texas Instruments suggests a push to tap into the mobile market.

The inclusion of Adobe, meanwhile, suggests Flash may figure prominently in Chrome.