"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," Midha 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."

Web Power

Google plans to roll out its Chrome operating system later this year in another bid against Microsoft. Speculation is building around the Chrome OS, with some seeing a netbook war with Microsoft, and others calling it a wash before it even debuts.

Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT , said the mobile market, which includes everything from smartphones to tablets, is still new.

"The smartphone market is relatively mature at this point, although it's still growing and developing. But the landscape for tablets and other devices is wide open at this point," King said. "Chrome hasn't gotten much traction, but I could imagine Chrome could be a very viable and potentially powerfully OS for tablets that are 90-plus percent web-focused or web-enabled and made to do most of their interactions with the browser."

Google 'Late To the Party'

The Chrome OS is an open-source lightweight operating system initially targeted at netbooks. It will run on both x86 and ARM chips, and Google is working with hardware manufacturers, including Acer, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Toshiba to bring netbooks to market with an OS that touts speed, simplicity and security.

Although Google's Chrome OS announcement set off hype on one hand and speculation on the other about a Google-Microsoft battle, one thing is certain: Microsoft got a head start with Windows 7. But Google isn't just competing against Windows 7 anymore, at least not in the tablet space.

"Conventional wisdom seems to be suggesting that Google is late to the party right now. Between the iPhone OS and Android, the Palm OS that HP owns now and, of course, Windows Mobile, it's a pretty crowded market," King said. "But where this is all going to go is anybody's guess at this point. I wouldn't count out any viable company out, let alone a company that has as much impact on the market as Google does."

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