Slashdot Mirror
What Will The Expanding World of ChromeOS Mean For Windows?
Nerval's Lobster writes "Hewlett-Packard is the latest PC manufacturer to jump into the Chromebook game, whipping the curtain back from a 14-inch device loaded with Google's Chrome OS. Powered by a dual-core Intel Celeron processor, and touting roughly 4.25 hours of battery life, the HP Pavilion Chromebook follows in the footsteps of other Chromebooks released by Acer and Samsung over the past few months. While these manufacturers continue to produce devices loaded with Windows, the growth of Chrome OS could spark some worry among Microsoft executives, who have become used to their hardware partners operating as Windows-only shops. But is Chrome OS a true threat to Windows, or just a way for manufacturers to gain some additional leverage in negotiating with Microsoft over licensing fees and other matters?"
I don't usually respond to ACs, but when figures need correcting I make an exception. MS shipped 1.25m Surface tablets Q4 last year but sales figures were only around 700,000. Compared to iPad sales of 22million over the same quarter, that's awful for a major-league product from a tech titan like MS: http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-surface-with-windows-rt-tablet-sales-disappoint-in-fourth-quarter-7000010688/
Windows 8 also doesn't have anywhere else to go but up. It's first quarters numbers will always be inflated by people chasing the latest and greatest at any cost, large enterprises stockpiling licenses early. Also, while it's profit isn't exactly weak, it's certainly not as dominant as it was was 2010 Q1 and previously, especially compared to other tech companies - the eponymous Apple being on of them - that seem to be capitalising nicely on Microsoft's slow erosion. Whether it can be halted is another matter but based on recent sales figures, it's not looking good for Microsoft ever returning to it's former glory days.
Who cares? CPU isn't the limiting factor on either a tablet or a chromebook. The lack of productivity software is.
What lack of productivity software? I have a quad core i7, and Gmail/Google Drive is my "productivity software".
I understand what you're trying to say, of course, but for many, many people, web based software is more than enough for them.
Face it: Microsoft was a real innovator in the early 90s.
Uh, what exactly did Microsoft innovate? As far as I can tell, people who think Microsoft innovated in the 90s only think so because Microsoft's products are the first place they saw some things, not because Microsoft was the first, or even the best, to do them.
They did have sharp business practices. I will give you that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Not to mention with the ChromeBook all you are doing is trading the openness of X86 for a system that is as locked down as a cellphone.
Go educate yourself, seriously. All chromebooks come with a dev mode switch that unlocks the bootloader and lets you do *whatever you want* to the hardware. Such as installing Ubuntu.
Only on Slashdot can such an ignorant, and *factually wrong* post get modded "insightful"