Google Buys Agnilux For Chrome OS Devices

Google may be on track to launch its own Google PC soon after it emerged that the search engine giant has acquired a little known startup called Agnilux for an undisclosed sum.

Dan Primack of PEHub says that Google must have been pretty persuasive to convince the company to sell out so early rather than go down a more traditional VC-funded route.

Agnilux - which blends the words fire and light - was formed by former P.A. Semi employees who left Apple after the company was acquired back in 2008 for $278 million and apparently used the technology in its A4 SoC.

The guys at Agnilux form a rather heteroclite band; there's a software architect from Tivo, a couple of engineers from Cisco and former P.A. Semi alumni. Agnilux's website is desperately down and the cached version only shows its location in California.

Some say that it was the exodus of the expertise from P.A. Semi that may have forced Apple to buy Intrinsity at the beginning of the month.

One thing is certain though; Agnilux must have been on something big for Google to take a gamble and buy them before someone else - Cisco, Apple or IBM - does it.

The search engine giant might be using Agnilux IP for in its servers, the Nexus range or even the Chrome OS netbooks that Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, said would cost around $400 (ed : why not all three? A processor family to rule them all).

With Apple and Google kind of squaring off, one might wonder whether the next big step for Apple would be to launch a search engine by the end of the year.