[TechWeb] June 21 news, Google spokesman said on Thursday announced that it will officially give up the Tablet PC business, and has not yet announced the cancellation of two devices.
The spokesman said: "In terms of Google's first-party hardware business, we will focus on Chrome OS laptops will continue to support Pixel Slate."
The exact nature of the device is canceled is still unknown, but it is certain that, Google launched in October last year, will not produce a follow-up product of Slate.
According to reports, was canceled hardware staff (about 20 people) was notified on Wednesday, most of whom are expected to Pixelbook laptop team. Google mentioned, was canceled two products than 12.3 inches smaller version of Slate, while the original plans to launch sometime after 2019. Google explained that the problem is the quality of these two products and lead to the Tablet PC project was canceled.
Google has had internal hardware department called "Create", responsible for the development and manufacture of Google notebook and tablet PC products. In March, Create department staff began to receive layoff notices, including hardware engineers, technical managers and project managers of people. Sources said the project notebook and tablet PC division has been canceled, but the team members will be looking for new jobs within the interior or on Google under the direction of Alphabet.
Google is not so much genetically engineered hardware products, as it is the Tablet PC market has been occupied by Apple, Samsung and other brands, want to rely on their own advantages to living again is not an easy thing. But Google's Pixel mobile phone with the native Android system, user experience get enough praise, it seems to be the only internal Google could "survive" hardware department. At the same time, Google's smart speaker English Google Home also won the favor of users, after all, Google has a strong AI algorithms behind the team, it appears that the native intelligence and experience are most likely to be the key to selling hardware products to help Google.