Is Google Prepping a Low-Cost PC?

Google and Wal-Mart Stores may be preparing a low-cost PC that runs an operating system created by Google and could be announced as early as Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper, citing unnamed analyst sources, reported Sunday that such a Google PC could cost as little as a couple of hundred dollars, or less than the $430 a single share of Google stock is worth today--because it would avoid the need to install Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Larry Page, Google's cofounder and president of products, will give a keynote address on Friday at the annual CES, where many consumer products for the year ahead are introduced. The newspaper said that analysts "suspect" Page will use the high-profile forum to "show off a Google computing device or announce a partnership with a big retailer to sell such a machine."

A Wal-Mart spokesperson called the report "strictly a rumor without any truth to it at all." A call to Google was not immediately returned. Google has long been rumored to be working on its own operating system, possibly based on Linux, as well as its own Web browser. Screen captures purportedly from an in-development Google operating system were circulated on the Internet in September, but were later discredited.

Search, Software, and More

Bear Stearns released a report last month speculating that consumers would soon be able to see "Google Cubes"--small hardware boxes that would allow users to move songs, videos, and other digital files between their computers and TV sets. In recent months, Google has also unveiled services and software delivered through the Internet that go beyond its core Web text search engine and match features provided by Microsoft applications.

But Michael Gartenberg, a consumer Internet analyst with Jupiter Research, said that while Google has done a good job of "co-opting the Windows desktop away from Microsoft," it faces an "astronomical challenge" if it wants to replace the OS itself. "You're talking about going one-on-one with Microsoft and all of its partners, and creating a whole ecosystem of software applications on your own. Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely to be successful? It's hard to imagine, unless there is something we don't yet know about."

Wal-Mart has sold low-cost PCs running desktop versions of Linux such as Linspire, Xandros, Novell's SuSe, and Sun Microsystems' Java Desktop System. The Bentonville, Arkansas, retailer started in 2002, though it has restricted such sales to its Brisbane, California-based Web store only. Walmart.com currently offers a Microtel-branded PC with a 1.5-GHz Sempron 2200+ AMD processor that runs Xandros Linux for $288. That computer does not have a monitor.

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