Google begins integrating CloudReady into Chrome OS

After surprising many with the acquisition of Neverware, the developers of CloudReady, Google is now seeking to integrate it directly and officially into Chrome OS, according to a new Chromium Repository discovered by Kevin at About Chromebooks. Since CloudReady has been around for a while by itself, the initial stages of these two code bases merging will, of course, be small and incremental. It looks as though Google is just beginning to wrap their heads around how they can merge everything together using makeshift code ‘hacks’ on the back end for now.

Kevin expects Google to have all of Neverware’s GitLab code converted into an internal Google codebase before long though, and points to the company’s Senior Software Engineer – Nicholas Bishop – having recently received a new @google.com email address. What’s more, is that some of the code strings point to a Chrome OS 90 Stable release for the initial Neverware Code to appear as a part of the official build on user’s devices – that’s a little over a week from release.

What does all of this mean for the end-user though? Not much, actually – at least, not yet. Neverware made it clear that CloudReady would continue to be available ‘as-is’ for the time being, with support and maintenance continuing for existing customers. Once it becomes an official Chrome OS offering, those existing customers would be upgraded seamlessly. It’s important to remember that CloudReady is a solution meant for education and enterprise. It offers a version of Chrome OS to older mac and Windows devices so that they can continue to operate and in many instances, gain new life instead of being thrown in the recycle bin. It allows organizations to embrace cloud resources by giving them access to them securely.

With LaCrOS soon to become the default browser for Chrome OS and the integration of CloudReady into Google’s own operating system, all signs point to the company looking to extend the life of its devices both on the consumer end and in education and enterprise. Chromebooks and Chromeboxes currently receive up to 8 years of updates in some cases, but soon, their access to security patches, updates, and features could be greatly extended, and that’s exciting. All of this will help Google compete on the next level with Microsoft who has dominated the Enterprise market for decades.