Oliver Haslam·

Apple Has Won: Google Officially Quits Tablet Market After Pixel Slate Failure

Google has confirmed that it is getting out of the tablet game. A spokesperson confirmed as much to Business Insider, saying that while the Pixel Slate will continue to be supported, two smaller and unannounced products are to be scrapped.

The move means that Google will now focus its efforts on Chome OS notebook computers, according to the report.

“For Google’s first-party hardware efforts, we’ll be focusing on Chrome OS laptops and will continue to support Pixel Slate,” Google’s spokesperson said. It’s not clear what the cancelled hardware was, but it was said to be smaller than the 12.3-inch Slate that is currently on sale. They were also supposed to ship at the same time during this calendar year.

Google SVPo f Devices & Services took to Twitter to confirm the move.

Hey, it’s true…Google’s HARDWARE team will be solely focused on building laptops moving forward, but make no mistake, Android & Chrome OS teams are 100% committed for the long-run on working with our partners on tablets for all segments of the market (consumer, enterprise, edu)

Those who were working on the unannounced products were told of Google’s decision to can them this past Wednesday. Most of the 20-person team is expected to move over to the Pixelbook team, according to the report.

Google has historically found it difficult to compete in the tablet market, often due to the lack of tablet-oriented apps available for Android and Chrome OS. Instead, Apple’s iPad is the big winner in a market that is made up of Apple’s tablets at the high end and a plethora of cheap options at the low end. Microsoft’s Surface is also popular as a notebook replacement, too.

(Via: Business Insider, [Twitter])

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