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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?"
Windows 8 is the true threat to windows.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Introducing the new Microsoft LiveBook. Boots right in to Microsoft's cloud-based OS. Skydrive, Skype, Office365, Bing search, Hotmail. Coming your way in 2015 or sooner.
640YB ought to be enough for anybody.
It seems that Chromebooks are trying to slide into the market slot that Netbooks are currently vacating. I'm not entirely sure I understand what's going on there, netbooks were well refined products that seem to have gone out of favour and everyone is designing Chromebooks from scratch. Considering these are effectively the new dumb terminals, you'd have thought they could've done better than a Celeron and 4.25 hours of battery life - netbooks were rather more capable than Chromebooks appears to be, cost about the same and had far superior battery life.
Or has everyone (finally) just realised that 10" is really not that comfortable a form factor?
Really? And compared to your average tablet, how does the Celeron fare? The Chromebook's niche is not that of a PC. Hell, it's not even like that of a traditional notebook. Given that, the Celeron processor is more than up to the task.
Uh, no. Most people care about having shiny baubles, and them being cheap. They may "claim" to care about privacy, but in practice, they give it up pretty freely.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
Who cares? CPU isn't the limiting factor on either a tablet or a chromebook. The lack of productivity software is.
In North America, Chromebooks are largely an education (K12) play. The "traditional" OEMs are seeing tremendous market share erosion to iPads in schools - So this provides them with something to sell. The schools struggle with iPads because they're expensive (next to no edu-discounting from Apple), fragile, difficult to manage and are theft targets. It's also difficult to create content (such as writing and essay) on iPad.
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. With a Windows laptop i can be booting up in under 10 minutes with any flavor of Linux or BSD that I want, I'm not beholden to ANYBODY to continue support of the machine as its mine and i can run what I want. With ChromeOS you have to 1.-Go into "dev mode", 2.-Wipe the OS completely (no dual boot allowed!), 3.-After all that you can run ONE and ONLY ONE OS, and that is a bootloader hacked version of ubuntu run by just one guy. if he quits hacking Ubuntu bootloaders or doesn't support your ChromeBook? Tough shit, regular Linux and BSd WILL NOT RUN on a ChromeBook.
So while i'm all for breaking up the MSFT monopoly on X86 this is NOT the way to go about it, we are trading one corporation for another that is worse in every single way. With Windows laptops if you don't like the latest from MSFT, or they no longer support your hardware who cares? You have dozens of distros to choose from that will have updated software so your device is still usable. With this you're getting the worst of X86 (shorter battery life, more heat) and the worst of ARM (locked down hardware, little support outside the OEM) with the upsides of neither.
What we need is an open laptop running the latest Android NOT a locked down Internet only OS. There are still a lot of places where free WiFi isn't available and if all the ISPs go to 6 strikes you can kiss free WiFi goodbye anyway so unless these have a SIM card slot and you buy a data plan they are gonna be paperweights quickly enough. Maybe its just me but I want a system i can use offline and on, that I can put whatever OS I want onto, and which isn't gonna be locked down like a cellphone and be a PITA for other OSes to support.
I thought MSFT locking systems down with UEFI was wrong, and its still wrong if a company does it while claiming they "do no evil". So I hope these bomb, maybe they'll give us open Android systems instead.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I can't for the life of me figure out how you'd mix a keyboard and a touch screen and have that make sense.
Ergonomically, it would suck to have to reach up to your monitor from typing ... it would look like hitting the carriage return on an old typewriter or something. :-P
On my desk, my monitor is about a foot or more behind my keyboard, I'd need to lean forward to even touch it.
Either I'm suffering from a large lack of imagination, or all of these people clamoring for a keyboard and a touch screen haven't thought this through. It seems more like you'd get a bad compromise of both.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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"