A story on the ComputerWorld site tells that Intel has known about the Chrome OS for some time, and that Intel is helping with the project. Perhaps all is not peachy with the Microsoft-Intel relationship these days.

The world’s largest chip maker is working with Google on the Chrome operating system and has been privy to the project for some time, a spokesman for the company said Friday.

Inside information about the workings of upcoming multicore chips could certainly help Google programmer’s make Chrome very, very efficient when distributing loads and drawing things in different windows.

Intel’s endorsement is important for the Chrome OS project because of its standing in the personal computing world: Intel microprocessors go into around four-fifths of the world’s computers.

Google is aiming the Chrome OS at desktops, laptops and netbooks, all devices dominated by Microsoft Windows, so supporting Chrome could put Intel in an awkward position with Microsoft. The two companies have so dominated the PC industry over the past few decades that the term “Wintel” (from Windows and Intel) is used to refer to PCs running Windows on a processor based on the Intel-developed x86 architecture.

Uh, yeah.

“We work with Google on a variety of projects, including elements of this one. We’ve been privy to the project for some time,” said Nick Jacobs, Asia-Pacific spokesman for Intel. He declined to elaborate on the extent of their relationship.

Read as ‘We really don’t want to anger the boys in Redmond, especially the dancing one that emulates Tom Cruise doing the sofa dance!”

Intel has also been seeking more support for its drive to put microprocessors into smaller devices, led by its Atom microprocessor, the most popular netbook processor. Google said Chrome will launch first in netbooks, in the second half of next year.

If Intel helps Google with netbooks, Google can help Intel with smaller devices – one hand washes the other. Besides, no one really thinks that Windows Mobile 7 can be that light or fast on small devices.

If Intel gets Google to do the heavy lifting on an operating system for small devices, and netbooks, then Intel can concentrate on doing what it does best, hardware, and Moblin might just quietly fade away, or become absorbed into something else.

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