Google: Chromebook/Box Integration, Extends Android for Work and Support for Chrome on XP

Google (GOOG) said it is taking its Chromebook and Chrome OS enterprise strategy to the next level, offering new hardware and software integrations to boost the platforms’ business value.

As PC World reported, Google has made three moves along those lines, enabling Chromebook users to access Box (BOX) cloud storage files as readily as files stored on Google Drive; upgrading Chromebox for Meetings, its video conferencing service, to accommodate large groups and working with vendors Acer, Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) to make the system available to users; and, customizing the platform to use for a single, dedicated task such managing digital signs from a central console.

In a Google for Work webcast, the search giant said that Chromebook and Chromebox users can add Box to their device through a beta version of the Box for Chrome OS app available at the Chrome Web Store. Box appears natively in the OS once it is installed.

Rajen Sheth, Android and Chrome for Work product management director, positioned Chrome as a suitable enterprise platform, reasoning that most apps are transitioning to browser and mobile-enabled from Windows-based.

Separately, Google moved its Android for Work technology to its Play Store last week, making the container technology it landed through its acquisition of Divide last year available to users running a partnered enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution on Android 4.0 or higher.

The solution, which allows employees using a personal Android device to create a separate work profile for corporate data and enterprise apps while protecting their personal information, initially was compatible only with Android 5.0 or higher.

In order to set up and manage Android for Work, enterprises will have to align with one of Google’s EMM partners–AirWatch by VMware, Citrix, MobileIron and some others.

And, in more Chrome news, Google said it will stop supporting Chrome on Windows XP at the end of this year. Microsoft stop issuing security patches and fixes for Windows XP a year ago.

“We will continue to provide regular updates and security patches to Chrome on XP through the end of 2015,” said Mark Larson, Chrome’s engineering director, in a blog post.

Google initially said it would support Chrome on XP at least through April, 2015 but now has settled on a more definitive end date.

“We know that not everyone can easily switch to a newer operating system,” Larson wrote. “Millions of people are still working on XP computers every day. We want those people to have the option to use a browser that’s up-to-date and as safe as possible on an unsupported operating system…We will continue to provide regular updates and security patches to Chrome on XP through the end of 2015.”