More reports of Acer’s Chrome OS devices — namely, tablets

Taiwanese computer manufacturer Acer plans to show off devices using Chrome OS, Google’s operating system for netbooks and other devices, before the end of the month, according to a report in Taiwan Economic News.

This might sound a little familiar. That’s because we ran a report last week that Acer planned to launch Chrome OS devices at the Computex conference from June 1 to 5. But then Acer denied the story.

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So what the heck is going on? Frankly, when Acer published its denial, we weren’t sure ourselves — we only knew that we trusted our sources. But let’s take a closer look at the language we used last week:

We don’t yet know what devices Acer will be launching. Chrome OS is designed for netbooks, but Google has also mentioned the possibility of bringing it to other device types like smartbooks and tablets running ARM processors.

Somehow, that wording got transformed in Acer’s denial, which read:

Despite recent rumours in the press regarding the launch of Chrome OS based netbooks at Computex, Acer today confirms that it has no short-term plans for such a product.

And now we have a report that isn’t about netbooks at all — it’s about tablets, an even hotter category for portable computing. Taiwan Economic News (a site that is apparently affiliated with a large newspaper conglomerate in Taiwan) said that Acer is working on a Chrome OS tablet with another Taiwanese device manufacturer, Quanta Computer.

Now, it’s still possible that our story was wrong and that the misinformation that reached our sources has been picked up by other news organizations. On the other hand, it seems telling that Acer was so careful in the wording of its denial.

I’ve left a message with the company’s San Jose office and will update if I hear back.

[Additional reporting by Matthaus Krzykowski]