Hypocrisy
It's not clear what Pichai thinks those unintended consequences might be; maybe he's just trying to make Google look less vindictive in this action. Either way, it looks like Microsoft has got a serious fight on its hands to keep IE bundled with Windows.
It's quite amusing to look at the comments on the blog posting. Most of them accuse Google of some degree of hypocrisy in joining the party and they point out that much of the default software on Google's smartphone OS - Android - is made by Google.
They also ask why this precedent isn't extended to any companies that bundle other software with OSs, like Apple, Nokia, RIM, etc. One reason is probably that none of them have the dominant market share that Microsoft has in the PC OS market, but fair point nonetheless.
It may just be a complete coincidence but Google has chosen the same day to announce the launch of the latest version of the Google Toolbar for IE. Hmmm.