The plot just thickened! After Guardian (mis)reporting that Nokia would switch over to Android followed by Nokia’s denial, we hear from well placed sources that Google is in fact negotiating to acquire Nokia’s Internet Tablet division! We are categorising it as a rumour considering we don’t have any hard facts to support the claim but it certainly seems quite possible considering today’s developments.

Google today announced its venture into the netbook and desktop OS space with its Chrome OS, which it seems for the moment will be sort of a web-based operating system, like Palm’s webOS but more open. However, considering the clout Microsoft already has with laptop and netbook OEMs, Google would expect to find it more difficult to convince OEMs than it faced with Android on the smartphone front.

A solution could be Google’s entry into the hardware marketing biz, something that it has stayed away from so far. Nokia has not done a great job in marketing its Internet Tablets and has always sidelined that side of its operations in favour of its cellphone biz for obvious reasons. However, we believe that Nokia would, sometime later this year, announce smartphones running on the Maemo platform that runs its Internet Tablets.

If our source is correct, Google could take over the hardware side of the Internet Tablet division, use its Chrome OS on them and create a market for its own Internet Tablets.

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