According to sources of Wall Street Journal, Google plans on merging Chrome OS with Android. Engineers at the company have been working on this project since the last two years and have made significant progress recently.

One of the sources claims that Google will showcase the new unified operating system next year, but will only release it in 2017.

Laptops that run Chrome OS are known as Chromebooks, and will get a new name post the announcement and release of this unified OS. This unified OS will also have access to the Google Play Store, though it is unclear how apps that were designed with a touchscreen in mind will work when used with a keyboard and trackpad.

While Android runs on billions of smartphones out there, Chrome OS is still a niche OS with Chromebooks accounting for less than 3 percent of the total PC shipments. Unlike Android, Google has complete control over the software roll out schedule of Chrome OS. In fact, it pushes out updates to the OS every six week or so with new features and bug fixes.

The unifying of Android and Chrome OS should particularly benefit Android tablets, which are limited in their current state because of their inability to run multiple apps side-by-side and poor app ecosystem.

• SourceWall Street Journal