IP Democracy: Hold On a Minute: The Google PC Could Be Real

While Google has pooh-poohed rumors that it plans to announce a Google PC (or Google Cube, as it were) at CES, rumors which started with a New Year’s day article by Sally Hofmeister at the LA Times, Mitch flagged something last month about Google working with Wyse Technology to develop a thin-client PC.

Mitch winnowed out of a long article about Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie (unfortunately this article is now behind a pay firewall) in the New York Times this relevant passage that could shed light on the Google PC rumors:

Google was among the companies that attended a meeting last month at I.B.M.’s headquarters in Armonk, N.Y., of the Open Document Foundation, a group formed to agree on freely available formats for word processing, spreadsheets and other office documents; the idea is to come up with alternatives to Microsoft’s proprietary Office formats. And for the last few months, Google has talked with Wyse Technology, a maker of so-called thin-client computers (without hard drives).

The discussions are focused on a $200 Google-branded machine that would likely be marketed in cooperation with telecommunications companies in markets like China and India, where home PC’s are less common, said John Kish, chief executive of Wyse. “Google is on a path to developing a stack of software in competition with the Microsoft desktop, and one that is much more network-centric, more an Internet service,” Mr. Kish said. “And this fits right into that.”

Update: Then again, the Google PC may not be real. David Krane, Google’s Director of Corporate Communications says “Nah, I don’t think so” to the idea in his blog.

Update: John Paczkowski, who writes the email newsletter Good Morning Silicon Valley, produced for SiliconValley.com, puts Google’s PC mystery in the following terms:

There will be no Google PC; there may, however, be a Google squarish case containing some computing circuitry.

But seriously Paczkowski points out that all of Google’s denials center on a Google-built PC, not necessarily a Google-branded PC, which is what the Wyse thin-client computer would be.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on January 4, 2006 10:44 AM to IP Democracy