• by Shankar Gupta , January 5, 2006

With Google co-founder Larry Page set to give a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show, rumors are swirling that the company will come out with some sort of spectacular announcement. Among the more prominent predictions was one made by the Los Angeles Times on Jan. 1, which had Google manufacturing low-cost computers for sale at Wal-Mart.

But Google Wednesday attempted to lay that bit of gossip to rest. "We have many PC partners who serve their markets exceedingly well and we see no need to enter that market; we would rather partner with great companies," the spokeswoman said.

She declined to comment on the possible topic of Page's speech, although the conference's schedule indicates he will be speaking on "new innovations from Google that will spark the future of CE [Consumer Electronics]."

Google watchers seem to think that Google's denial is believable. Search expert John Battelle wrote on his blog that he finds the idea "really hard to buy."

Om Malik, a Google watcher and senior writer at Business 2.0, speculated on his personal blog that the development could instead be a new innovation with Google Video. "A reliable source of mine pinged and told me that the big news would be new and improved Google video," he wrote. "It is some sort of a video distribution deal which has been in the works for a while. Maybe content on demand, or finally a strategy and partnership that gives direction to Google Video."