Enterprise Mobility: Android, Chromebook Questions Stick Around After Google I/O

Google I/O served as the launching pad for major news announcements in the past, with Google Wave unveiled in 2009 and Google TV premiering in 2010. Wave is dead and the jury is out on Google TV, which is unlikely to go away anytime soon. The search engine has a lot riding on Google TV because it uses the Android and Chrome-based platform as its main vehicle for porting YouTube to consumers' living rooms. Perhaps the biggest news out of the fourth annual Google I/O developer conference earlier this month was that Google gave out 5,000-plus Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices and 5,000-plus Chromebooks to the show attendees. Okay, that might be a bit simplistic. Google had a lot of interesting things to say. On May 10, we learned about the impending launch of Android 3.1 "Honeycomb," the confirmation of the next Android smartphone build, dubbed “Ice Cream Sandwich,” and some developer APIs for open access and the Android@Home initiative. On May 11, we learned that the long-awaited, much-ballyhooed Samsung and Acer Google Chromebooks will launch June 15. Consumers can snap them up online from Best Buy and Amazon.com. But Google will also sell businesses and schools Chromebooks on a subscription basis for $28 and $20 per user, per month, respectively. Google told us a lot about these new products, partnerships and initiatives. But this eWEEK slide show runs through some key questions that remain unanswered in the wake of Google I/O.