PC World, one of the world’s most respected consumer based IT magazines and online magazines, predicted the doom of the Chromebook one month before it was launched (Tom Hadley, PCWorld, May 15, 2011). It seems soon after launch, the respected magazine and online magazine has a lot of hat eating to do. Google’s Chromebooks were already in the top 10 selling laptops on Amazon in their first month, and in the top 5 selling laptops on Amazon in July 2011, as reported by CNET. Google is extremely pleased with their sales, and there are some reasons why they will continue to sell more. It is not like they have any issues of online marketing. We will see Chromebooks take a chunk out of the personal computing market. Here is a look at what is happening, why, and what to expect in the future.
Business
It is not surprising that business has not adopted the Chromebook in its early days. The business market is a little more complicated than the general consumer market, and it is heavily entrenched with Windows and a whole range of complicated issues, going back to the days of the 1970s and the launch of mainframes by IBM. There is no time to go into all of that in this article, but suffice to say, business will probably not be a big user of the Chromebook for some time to come.
The General Consumer
The average laptop consumer and average internet surfers are tired of fixing their laptop’s problems. They are tired of viruses, and they are extremely tired of paying for expensive software. They are even more tired of having to update their computer all the time. They are even more tired of having to constantly download software. They are fed up with it all. They want to turn on their laptop, get on the internet, do their email, and surf the internet. This is what the Chromebook is designed to do.
There is nothing else to using one. Apart from that, it will improve as Google improves the applications running on Chrome OS (Chromium) and the browser-based operating system will improve. If you are using Chrome to surf the internet on your Apple or Windows machine now, you will not want to bother with other browsers again. It is super-fast. It feels like your internet speed has been doubled. On top of that, it is super-safe. It doesn’t need constant updating, and it is very sturdy.
Cost
Google is offering the sale of their machines in a very attractive and intelligent way. For a monthly subscription fee (a low 28USD) over three years, you can get your machine sent directly to you in the mail. That is a total cost of 1008 dollars. That includes all the software and operating system (including all updates, which is unavoidable anyway because all of those items are online). Included is a monthly 100MB wireless 3G connection. That is cheaper than many mobile phone plans. Compare that with the cost of buying an Apple or newer PC with Windows, and the total costs are going to be less than one third. Your Apple and PC laptop will be junk in 2 years anyway.
Schools
Chrome is also offering special discount deals for students, and offering even better deals for schools or organisations with high numbers of subscribers at a single time. They have openly said they are ready to negotiate. Schools and educational institutions all need laptops for their students. We are even seeing children as young as 3-years old starting to use laptops as a part of their pre-school education.
Laptops in elementary schools have been common for some time. Forget all the Facebook/Twitter marketing, or anti-marketing of websites, which seem to be getting paid for their opinions, just like the Google Books project, Google is doing the world, and particularly schools, a favour with the Chromebook. I don’t work for Google, or have any association with them, but I am surprised at the negativity of some so-called professionals in the IT industry.