Google has decided to discontinue its Pixelbook series laptops.
The company will now focus on improving the overall Chromebook experience. Google says it made this decision to consolidate its operations to better direct its finances and reduce conflict.
Google has completely dismissed the possibility of further developments in its Pixelbook laptop lineup, which has always been considered premium ChromeOS options. The company not only stopped development, but also disbanded the team working on the next generation of the device. All members of the Pixelbook team have been reassigned to other roles at Google, The Verge reports.
With this decision, Pixelbook becomes the second portable computer that Google has abandoned. In 2019, the company stopped development work on ChromeOS tablets. At the time, Google had stated that it wanted to focus on laptops.
In July of this year, an internal memo from Google CEO Sundar Pichai made it clear that the company plans to slow down hiring and cut some company-wide projects. In some cases, this means consolidating and streamlining processes where investments overlap. In other cases, it means pausing development and redistributing resources to higher priority areas.
While the devices that got the Pixel brand weren’t exactly premium, they were definitely better than the others in terms of hardware and software. Even the Pixelbook Go, which Google introduced as a more affordable laptop in 2019, had better hardware than common Chromebook laptops.