Slashdot Mirror
Chromebooks Have a Lucrative Year; Should WinTel Be Worried?
Chromebooks, and ChromeOS have come a long way, and this year two of the best selling laptops at Amazon are Chromebooks. Computerworld calls it a punch in the gut for Microsoft.
"As of late Thursday, the trio retained their lock on the top three places on Amazon's best-selling-laptop list in the order of Acer, Samsung and Asus. Another Acer Chromebook, one that sports 32GB of on-board storage space -- double the 16GB of Acer's lower-priced model -- held the No. 7 spot on the retailer's top 10. Chromebooks' holiday success at Amazon was duplicated elsewhere during the year, according to the NPD Group, which tracked U.S. PC sales to commercial buyers such as businesses, schools, government and other organizations. ... By NPD's tallies, Chromebooks accounted for 21% of all U.S. commercial notebook sales in 2013 through November, and 10% of all computers and tablets. Both shares were up massively from 2012; last year, Chromebooks accounted for an almost-invisible two-tenths of one percent of all computer and tablet sales."
No.
I wiped the Chome OS off of the Chrombook. For me it was just a cheap netbook.
Seems like Google found a pretty good formula there. I'm not sure Chromebooks will ever be even the single #1 overall netbook OS, lots of people need support for things Chrome doesn't do, but it is pretty impressive that they've got this much market penetration. I'd have scoffed at the possibility a year ago myself.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
No Comment!
The subject line and body are not the same thing. Having excellent sales implies nothing about whether or not it was lucrative. The opposite is also true, of course, just ask Apple, or Porsche.
can we hope that this means all hardware being perfectly supported by linux ?
Rich
Nothing like a real live wolf at the door to help focus the troops and get rid of *some* of the inside political games.
Case in point: after Netscape was sold off to AOL, development on IE basically stopped until Firefox ascended and started grabbing crazy market share.
Merry Christmas kids!
Shit.....
Enough with the Chromebook hype already. They're fad devices, just like tablets. Yeah, a lot of people may have temporarily deluded themselves into thinking that there was some practical benefit to these kinds of devices, but that fantasy wears off soon enough. Then these half-assed, restricted, Internet-required devices end up sitting on some table or shelf somewhere collecting dust because they tend not to be very useful at all.
Mobile phones are useful. Laptops are useful. Desktops are useful. Anything between them tends to be very impractical because they feature the worst of their neighboring device types. Anything less than a mobile phone (including fancy digital watches) are too small and without enough processing power to be useful. Tablets bring the worst of mobile phones (restricted software environments and limited processing power) without any of the benefits of laptops (useful software environments and a useful amount of processing power). Chromebooks are between tablets and laptops, but still in that damn-near-useless void. Those extra-large laptops are also in a useless void, since they're too large to be portable, but don't offer the processing capabilities of desktop systems. Desktops are, of course, useful for anyone doing anything remotely serious.
It really doesn't matter how many units of these devices are sold. What matters is how much productivity they help enable. Mobile phones, laptops and desktops have an excellent record of increasing productivity significantly. Tablets and Chromebook-style tablets-with-keyboards don't.
it's that Windows 8 isn't.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
And couldn't find anything recent !! All old junk !! There was a recall but check Amazon yourself !! There is Google's at $1500 or more and forget that !!
I replaced my old go-to laptop with a Haswell-based Acer C720 Chromebook that I put Linux on. I regularly get 7-8 hours of battery life, it has a decent matte screen (1366 x 768), USB 3.0, x86 dual-core Haswell chip...plenty of stuff under the hood for $199. Yeah it's got 2GBytes RAM (the 4GB RAM version is out of stock...) but for $199 I'm not expecting a gaming monster.
The C720 is one of the few x86 Chromebooks on the market and the best damn value I think for a portable Linux laptop.
I'm a full-time college student, and I'm a part-time web developer. I'm constantly surrounded by the demographics that are the heaviest users of mobile and portable computing devices. Yet I NEVER see anyone using a Chromebook, even though it's something I specifically watch for.
Nobody in my lectures uses one of them. Most of them have an Apple laptop of some sort, or a Dell. I never see people in the college library with Chromebooks. Again, they've got their iLaptops, Dells, and occasionally a tablet.
Nobody at my workplace uses a Chromebook, from executives to managers to the marketing squad to us lowly web devs. We all have real laptops, and there are a few people who use a tablet now and then.
Nobody I know outside of work and college has a Chromebook. None of my extended family members do, my wife doesn't, my kids don't, and none of my friends do.
Even on the goddamn subway or bus I never see people carrying a Chromebook, never mind actually using it. When I'm out for lunch or getting a coffee, again, I never see Chromebooks being carried or used. The last time I was on a flight, I saw lots of people using Apple or PC laptops, but nobody had a Chromebook.
If these devices truly were as widespread as is claimed, then why the hell am I not seeing anybody actually use them? Of the hundreds of people I'll see with devices in a given day, or the thousands upon thousands of people I've seen since these devices first came on the scene, none of them have or are using a Chromebook. I see Apple laptops. I see PC laptops. I see tablets. I see mobile phones. But I never see Chromebooks. Never!
This is a guess I'm pulling out of my @$$, but they look pretty profitable to sell. Those screens can be had for $50 bucks in quantities of 1000 (let alone what Samsung buys) and they hardware's a cheap SOC. The entire thing's probably under $120 bucks and you can sell it for $250. That's a pretty sweet profit margin. It's kinda like how Android phones were outselling Windows 8 Phones because the sales reps got better bonuses. Amazon's going to push the product with the better margin.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I wiped the Chome OS off of the Chrombook. For me it was just a cheap netbook.
Bought two, one was for a cheap Linux laptop. Emphasis cheap, trackpad especially so. Yet it is the first time I repurposed or dual boot a laptop and had full functionality due to a complete working set of drivers.
The second chromebook is intact and serving a more useful purpose. It where I do online banking and other financial activities. Its used for nothing else.
As far as Google's more general purpose intent for a chromebook. Sorry, PCs and Macs do a better job, even when bought into the google docs idea.
The Acer C720 Chromebook is Intel Haswell-based, and perfectly compatible with most Linux distros.
Phoronix did an awesome review of linux on the C720 several weeks ago, and in short: it's awesome. It runs everything you'd need - movies, internet, USB 3.0, streaming, 7-8 hours of battery life. There is some issue to work out with the touchpad, but it's possible to run most distros out of the box with an external mouse, or by applying a kernel patch. This is temporary though - I'd expect the touchpad to be incorporated in due time.
For $199, there's no better laptop on the market for Linux.
They've had two since this one.
Scott
©20014 angrykeyboarder & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved
If you wipe ChromeOS with Arch Linux, there's a patch available for the C720 touchpad. They even have the touchscreen working for the C720P. I know they're working on getting the patches to work with Ubuntu, Mint, etc.
Alternatively, you can just run Crouton to duel-boot alongside ChromeOS...which solves the touchpad issue.
See, it looks like a laptop, but the first thing people ask is "does it run... xyz?". I know a few people that have bought them, persevered with them, got frustrated and now they're gathering dust. Granted they do what they do faster and better than a Windows laptop in the same bracket, but they simply can't do as much, and you run into those limitations really fast.
I use a chromebook exclusively for personal banking and similar financial activities. Its used for nothing else. No email, no web browsing ... its a special purpose dedicated device. Unless you are my kitchen table when I'm paying bills you wouldn't see it.
Check out this 128GB NGFF SSD. $200 for the C720, $100 for the SSD ....it's a damn fine value. Anything else you might need can connect through USB 3.0 or the SD card slot.
As a machine that cannot serve all computing needs, Chromebooks will reach a point of market saturation, as most people will never use them as their primary computers. WinTel doesn't need to be worried, except in the greedy capitalist market share sense (they'll be forced to make room for another entrant in the market).
Dave Winer has some interesting thoughts on this, arguing that the Chromebook market was Microsoft's for the taking, but they instead chose to cut bait on netbooks, ceding the market to Google.
if your friends installed anything except Windows, then the answer to the title might be "yes."
I recently bought my two computer illiterate brothers $99 tablets (no activation, owned free and clear) from Aldi (Medion Brand).
Now they can email, and surf, and that other shit since I taught it to them in a matter of hours Christmas night. Hell, they don't even need to type, google provides text to speech that's pretty damn good.
Besides surf, my parents only use the computer to do taxes. Their program is now online. No backup worries, no compatibility issues besides a semi modern browser. Half the windows only programs they were previously using was utilities to keep windows running.
The OS has ceased to be important and soon will no longer be a cost that will be tolerated. Whatever OEMs pay for a copy of Windows, I'm guessing $50, will soon be $50 too much in an era of low cost notebooks and netbooks.
Tablets became microsoft's rebar. They weren't willing to commit a fullblown windows to it, crippling it more and more with amount of apps running and what not, out of fear, until they lost the whole thing.
Within the next decade, desktops will beat a retreat away from homes back to the office. Tablets will run android (and iOS). Chromebooks will become more common not because people care about the OS, but rather it won't matter most of the time.
This isn't to say MS will be out of business, but their business inevitably will shrink away from homes.
Chromebooks aren't for geeks, they're what you buy for your Mom/Dad/kids/salespeople so you don't have to play tech support because they can't be screwed up like a Windows laptop can.
They are making great inroads into educational and some business markets for the same reasons, low acquisition and support costs.
It's not your cup of tea - that's fine, and you're willing to pay extra for higher res. The reason it's $199 is because it has a mass-market cheapo screen. Look in the $300 and up range, and you'll find your device.
This is a guess I'm pulling out of my @$$
You can say "ass" at Slashdot, we are mostly adults here.
And even more, if it's a "personal thing" about profanity, if you are typing "@$$", you are thinking "ass", and so you are just as "guilty" of offending whatever thing it is about the word "ass" that offends you.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I'm kind of a "fanboi" of Simon Lin and Terry Gou. Many of the stories in /. seem blind or deaf to the history of the "white box" manufacturers and "ODM" (original design manufacturers) who build the gadgets that USA Operating Systems run on never seem to get their share of appreciation. Chrome and Android basically did what "white box" permission by IBM and MS did in the early 90s, but much more quickly... allowed Asians to invent and design stuff which is actually more affordable and better made than the originals. I remember people mocking and making fun of "Jap cars" like Datsun, and the "made in Japan" sticker being an object of derision. Then it was Hyundai and Kia and the Koreans. It seems like we have to learn the same lessons over Taiwan.
BTW Lin is behind Wistron and Acer, Gou is behind Foxconn. Together they employ more engineers and inventors than anyone else.
Gently reply
Just curious how the ratio of ARM/x86 there was.
It was really nice to see a ARM entry into the market, but no one seems to know its there..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
my girlfriend's mother bought a chromebook for her younger brother for christmas. they are very un-tech savvy and the only computer in the house is in mom's bedroom. all she wanted was something cheap and troublefree that would keep him off her computer playing facebook games. it's like she was already describing the chromebook before i suggested it. some people are totally casual users and only relate to a computer like it's a xbox or cell phone. the only thing they ever install is malware on accident. these people aren't creatives, office workers or students...they're children, blue collar laborers, the elderly...basically the family members that bug us with silly computer questions. there are a lot of those people out there.
2014 will be the Year of the Linux Desktop!
Of course, this isn't the kind of thing where everything actually changes all at once - what really happens is that slowly but surely most of the key functionality for computers is web-based, so as long as the protocols are well-understood and implemented by a bunch of different clients that leaves users free to choose operating system platforms on other factors (like freedom, price, or coolness) rather than the applications deciding for the buyer. And eventually, the threats that Microsoft makes when an OEM doesn't put Windows on everything will not have enough teeth to be effective.
I am officially gone from
You are using an OS specifically designed as spyware and you are using it for online banking and other financial activities?? Seriously??
They were Christmas gifts to a couple family members that mostly use computers for web browsing. In their case it was a perfect fit, and to my surprise, you can get a lot of functionality through Chrome apps for if you want to go beyond web browsing. I also specifically told them I could put another Linux distribution on them if they didn't like what it could do by itself, but I haven't got any such requests from either one.
tl:dr, they're good computers for what I'd venture to say the majority of people use their computers for, including said family members. I can see reason for Microsoft to be concerned.
While I deplore lousy software as much as anyone, Gnome3 et al were by Ubuntu, and Chromebooks were by Google. Different groups of people.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"Chromebooks increasingly threaten Windows' place in the personal computer market." What a load of bunk. Windows' place in the personal computer market *should* be the trash heap. A punch in the gut? Instead of a right to the solar plexus, they really deserve a kick just a little bit south of the solar plexus. I for one am way past tired of their predatory tactics: a competitor comes along offering better product, they spend billions to kill it, then drop their sales and go back to crap service, buggy product and high prices. Worst is their software lock-in. I don't really expect anything different from Computerworld though. They are a 'branch plant' for m$ marketing. They make it sound like mickeysoft deserves people's business, instead of being required to earn it. I hope the OEM's gang up at the spring CES and 'Whack Mickeysoft'. That's marketing talk for 'get a better licensing deal from the abusive proprietary software vendor.' I for one am tired of buying computer, then wiping the mickeysoft crapware and installing a real system on it.
I just need a quick bit of clarification: you are speaking about ChromeOS and not all flavors of Windows, yes?
When you want something built, come see me. If you want correct grammar and spelling, get a F*ing liberal arts student.
Chromebooks being "two of the best selling laptops on amazon" would only be a "punch in the gut" to x86 machines if they were a significant portion of ALL laptop sales. Picking out several models in a market with that many different varieties is missing the big picture.
my girlfriend's mother bought a chromebook for her younger brother for christmas. they are very un-tech savvy and the only computer in the house is in mom's bedroom. all she wanted was something cheap and troublefree that would keep him off her computer playing facebook games. it's like she was already describing the chromebook before i suggested it. some people are totally casual users and only relate to a computer like it's a xbox or cell phone. the only thing they ever install is malware on accident. these people aren't creatives, office workers or students...they're children, blue collar laborers, the elderly...basically the family members that bug us with silly computer questions. there are a lot of those people out there. But no matter, they wound up being really really smart by accident. The Linux based operating system clearly is the most advanced available anywhere at any price. They may not be tech savvy, but somehow managed to avoid the crapware that is windblows. Good for them! Perhaps they will never have to suffer with windblows. I'm happy that there are millions of them, perhaps even billions. Since they don't have to suffer fixing windblows all the time, they can be creative, office workers, and students. Its very simple: the end user experience is secure. You can connect to a company high speed wireless service. Data is secure on company servers. If its stolen, no data breaches. The people who use this are genious!
Is this a new meme?
$ITEM
The same group of Prople behind
$PREVIOUS_LIST_OF_ITEMS
????
My 19 year old daughter is doing a course in Industrial Design. She has a highend macbook (retina display , all ssd), Samsung Note tablet and Fedoera 19 PC which is shared with me. Her time on device is Notebook , PC then MacBook. The tablet is mostly used the consume media and drawing, the PC for when she wants a big monitor or needs to write or print sonethind and the Mac for Adobe products.
Clearly the tablet is a useful device that serves a reasonable fraction of her needs.
More like Windows Dirge. Screwing up a major OS release twice in a decade has to be the reason Ballmer is out.
Indeed, Chromebooks are a real userspace frankenstein. It is a Gentoo derivative that runs Upstart. Yes, go look it up...
Wintel has already lost teenagers, grandparents, and all those who use computers just for email and facebook. They have switched to phones, tablets, and now some of them to Chromebooks. If Chromebooks weren't around, they still wouldn't be buying Wintel, but Android or iOS.
But...corporate America is still solidly entrenched, and they are just now moving on from Windows XP to Windows 7. In 10 years or so, when Windows 7 is as old as XP is now, That's when they will start to think about where to go next, and whatever it is, that option isn't around yet. So we'll see!
You are using an OS specifically designed as spyware and you are using it for online banking and other financial activities?? Seriously??
Are you actually suggesting it's safer to do online banking with your typical malware ridden Windows system than with a Chromebook?? Seriously??
Since when did Google invent any of those?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Was googling around, didn't see anything that had all critical components working.
no. MS and Apple? Yes.
Intel will continue to make chips.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No, I'm not suggesting that. I didn't compare it to Windows.
You're taking him way too literally. He doesn't mean "same group of people" as in the company they might currently work for. He's talking about "same group of people" as in those hipsters who've used a Mac before, and then try to bring a half-assed imitation of those ideas to Linux, without fully understanding OS X nor the traditional UNIX way. We get total shitfests like those he mentioned, GNOME 3 being one of the worst of the worst.
These people are independent of any one company, organization or open source project. We see them at Google. We see them at Microsoft. We see them at Mozilla. We see them in the GNOME project. They move around between companies and projects. They are a plague upon whichever organizations they may currently be infecting. They do exist as a collective of idiocy, though, and that's what he was using to group them.
I would be fine using my own Windows machines (I have an 8.1, a 7, and a Vista at home), so yes. In the last few years, all of the compromises to my credit cards have been due to improper server admin somewhere in the "cloud", the latest being Target.
I'd also be fine using a Chromebook, but they don't do enough for me to even consider one.
Chromebooks are usually made on x86 so Intel will not die just yet...
on the other hand Microsoft should be worried... but they should have been worried for several years now.
You know what is awful? Chrome books.
I checked out the demo units at various stores, and they're all very weak systems, the LCD screens are so dim and low resolution.
People are better off with a free piece of crap smartphone than these things.
You are using an OS specifically designed as spyware and you are using it for online banking and other financial activities?? Seriously??
Using a very loose definition of spyware, yes. The important part is that it is not malware. Google is watching where I go not recording what I type once I get there. So google is going to show me lots of ads for banks, not harvest my account name and password.
Its a far lower risk than using a Window, Mac or Linux PC that is far more vulnerable to being rooted.
I'd also be fine using a Chromebook, but they don't do enough for me to even consider one.
You are missing the point of the original post. Its a dedicated computer, single role. Its not meant to be used for anything else so all those other things where is has such terrible shortcomings are irrelevant.
You can try a similar approach with an old retired Windows, Mac or Linux system. Wipe it. Reinstall. Using it for nothing else. The chromebook has the advantage of being better hardened and less targeted.
Windows customers? they never LIKED Windows, they TOLERATED Windows.
Nailed it.
Basically because when the company got big, the original set with fire in the belly, passion, and competition cashed out or burnt out. The second echelon came in, used short term policies got their goodies and went out. The management that remained all came of age when Microsoft was so dominant they could put out start ups that could threaten them just by press releases of vaporware. They used every trick in the book to leverage their monopoly status. They never learnt any new tricks and they can not thrive in a real level playing field without monopoly advantages.
May be it is a harsh assessment, and company that big could never be managed well, not in fast changing computer business.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Remember all those "The netbook is a fad/death of the netbook" articles? Well let this shop owner let you in on a secret most didn't know, which is MSFT killed it on purpose because Ballmer decided that Windows should cost Apple money while at the same time having a 4 alarm fire's worth of smoke blown up his ass by Intel who was frankly tired of all those Atom and AMD Bobcat chips cutting into their high margin sales.
Didn't those stories say that TABLETS were killing netbooks? Even though some devices are just tablets with keyboards. Are you saying that the tech media was WRONG?
The herd mentality among college students will probably make them conservative in this regard. But take a look at the conventional MS mainstay of office workers. They are moving away from Exchange/Outlook hell and the ridiculously overpriced thin-clients/Windows server solution. Google Apps does the collaboration much better, Chromebooks/boxes are the mobile thin-clients of the future. Other mobiles work just as well, as a bonus.
about your mother using a ChromeBook and you not having to support it. I'm in the same boat with my mother.
But...corporate America is still solidly entrenched, and they are just now moving on from Windows XP to Windows 7. In 10 years or so, when Windows 7 is as old as XP is now, That's when they will start to think about where to go next, and whatever it is, that option isn't around yet. So we'll see!
This is not my experience. I consult and visit quite a few customers, and I'm seeing more and more Macs around. Not just tech companies, insurance firms, colleges, etc.
Macs are a non-trivial part of corporate purchases and increasing. Of course, this is because Microsoft pretty much lost out to open-source software and the web, and if you want a machine that can run Office (which sadly, isn't going anywhere as Excel is a truly entrenched product), Macs are decent hardware and a status symbol.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Bought mine for 220 bucks, installed ubuntu - very happy....
fuck the windows tax, but also fuck chromeos!
Or Lightroom? No? I think I'll pass........
"Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost." ~ V.I. Lenin
When I wad in the states recently, I was offended by how stores like BestBuy, Staples, Office Depot and others looked like they were intentionally misleading people into thinking they were buying a proper laptop (windows, mac... Even Linux.. Eww) by putting Chromebooks next to budget laptops on the shelf and not posting any warnings about their shittiness.
Honestly, I have bought two ChromeBooks, a Samsung Series 7 Slate, two Surface Pros, a Surface Pro 2, 5 iPads, a Surface, a MacBook Air two Acer tablets in the past three years.
My wife uses her iPad for eBooks for school. My kids watch films on their iPads... Funny how iTunes music store is a good enough reason to use iPad. I haven't touched anything other than Surface for over a year. We are mostly a Windows house though. It's about productivity and entertainment. We travel a lot too. The Chromebooks are useless... Especially on cross-Atlantic flights. The iPads are awesome because of battery life. The Surface Pro 2 is the winner though... 7 hours of battery life (plus battery keyboard soon) while watching films, programming, using Linux on multiple virtual machines. I can honestly say, if Microsoft releases a new Surface Pro once a year with better battery and all it costs is $1200, I'm in.
As for ChromeBooks, I threw them in the closet since I wouldn't even give that trash away as it would just disappoint whoever got it.
I wouldn't do any financial transaction from a Windows box, not even buy a book off Amazon. Too many friends have had trouble that way.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
A headline that is a question CAN be answered with "no".
Not must be.
Not all.
Moreover, this isn't the sort or style of question headline that the law was written for. It was written for "Is Obama hiding something?" sort of "JAQing Off" insinuating queries.
I cannot understand why this is the case, I think they are are ideal running ChromeOS for use in schools and old age homes. I do not understand why they are not sold here for a good price.
Chromebooks point out one crucial thing - people don't use their computers for very much. If you have a browser and some apps that are browser like, such as social media then you can cover 99% of what people actually buy computers for.
I've been dicking around with Chrome and lightweight Linux on a netbook for months - looking for something to replace XP when it goes away. All these systems and distros are, at a high level, more or less the same thing. From "Cloud Based OS's" to Mint to Xubuntu to all the others. And while they purport to have about 40-45 thousand apps to install among them, it's like the apps catalog on Google Play albeit with fewer games. Once you get past the media players, the DVD burners, the office apps you hit the bottom of the barrel or the wall or whatever you call it. About all that's really missing is a good suite of 4G drivers and the ability to make your machine a wireless access point. So if you're a PC application maker you should be seriously looking to change your business or sell your company because in a year you will be a niche business, a corporate provider or dead.
Of course, Forbes has always been Microsoft friendly.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2013/12/30/chromebook-sales-who-is-using-chrome-os-browser-share/
I'm quite sure Google and the NSA won't take money from my bank account, and if they want to know my transactions, they have easier ways to get those than looking at my computer.
Now, there is data that is worth protecting, and it's a serious problem (anyway, MS shares at least as much with the NSA as Google, and they seem much more cooperative in increasing the spying - I hope you are talking about FreeBSD, Debian, or Gentoo), but personal finance isn't worth protecting against them.
Rethinking email
I have it on the coffee table. Pick it up to surf while watching tv, or to look up a recipe, or address, or whatever. Recently, I started using it with my chromecast.
It's light, inexpensive, boots very fast, lasts all day on a single charge, and does not require a lot of fuss with updating, or applications, or whatever.
I bought it from Amazon warehouse for $145. It's the Samsung that usually retails for $249.
I couldn't be happier with it. I find it much more useful than a tablet.
If it smells like a duck?
Hockey puck?
Let me say your concept is interesting, but wrong. Never heard of Mao, or Nixon? Or the concept of gijin? I know, spelling nazi's will be all over that. But the concept of shared industrial programs to avoid taxation in America, when the tax rates were in the 80% range for over 1 million dollars in profit? But our business people went overseas too establish companies in foreign lands to avoid taxation in America, building foreign national companies in their image. Then they sent the "leaders" to america to "get educated" in our processes, and systems. Returning to their countries, to create the companies of today. But you never hear of the Boeing of China, or the Northrupt of Korea, but you see their products. The pac-af, the NAFTA, and the lowering of the standards of manufacturing, the outsourcing, the spying on each other......
I bought a Windows 8.1 netbook (Asus X200CA) with a 320GB hard drive and touchscreen for $217. I greatly prefer having a system that runs full desktop apps than something that just runs a web browser with plugins.
I find this news of Chromebook stealing Windows market share has a "they have this coming to them" feeling. So Google has the bucks and the talent to make an OS and practically give it away. Ha Ha. For them, pushing the penetration of Internet use to the lowest strata is all they need because its the clicks, not the OS licenses that make their revenue.
I feel like its karma, like the demise of MS is deserved because, in spite of Bill Gates earlier public dismissal of the Internet as fad, MS came back with a brutal, loss-leader give-away of IE just to defend itself from its own hubris [and inadvertently polluting their own OS with "back orifices"]. Google may cut the legs from under MS but primarily because they know where their bread is buttered and they work to expand that...not because they need to damage the business model of a competitor.
Microsoft has it coming.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Yep, most people used their PC's for content consumption, not creation. They're finding that consumption works just find on Android. What little creation they do works find from a browser on Android.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
"In the last few years, all of the compromises to my credit cards have been due to improper server admin somewhere in the "cloud", the latest being Target."
Just FYI, the Target compromise was located in the store POS systems! Someone had managed to place extra code into the POS system to obtain card data. Target Central was not where the problem was located.
And I work in Finance and haven't seen a Max in the office in years -- and the ones I have seen have been for personal use, not corporate.
Point being, anecdotal evidence is purely anecdotal evidence.
Agreed, but the big money is in big infrastructure and 10,000 and up unit purchases, and Apple has never played well in that market.
Microsoft is very, very good at selling to the Enterprise AND the Government - and has sucked at selling to the end consumer for as long as I can remember. Which is longer than PC's have existed, having started on PDP 11's in the 1970's.
For the record I use Apple Products, and Microsoft Products, and Linux. They all have their pluses and minuses. The only area where the posters are crazy is the love of Google Play, which is a joke, anybody can put any app they want there, it's a huge collection of malware waiting to be opened. When I get something from the Apple App Store, I know somebody at least looked at the thing, and if it doesn't work, I get an immediate refund.
Murphy was an optimist
by how many chromebook users I have been seeing coming to my web sites.
While I agree with your assessment, I think the pressure that Apple is putting on Microsoft in the enterprise space won't be seen for a few years. And Apple isn't the only factor, just one of the many. Then all of a sudden, Microsoft will have massive resistance at the enterprise level in keeping their margins on standard 2-version licensing contracts where they used to be able to ask the customer for anything they wanted (i.e., they used to have the customer over a barrel).
For now, like Blackberry, their profits will continue to rise, but once their enterprise dominance is broken it will be like the floodgates opening, and either Microsoft will see a steady lowering of licensing revenues, or they will see a sharp drop-off of renewals (i.e., sudden drop of revenues). In either case, it will force Microsoft to revisit their company culture and attitude towards customers.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I bought a chromebook with the intention of putting Linux on it. But I played around with it for a a while and found that I really like the ease and simplicity of ChromeOS. I am spoiled with it booting up in 15 seconds. It cost $200. It does everything I need my laptop to do, surf the net, do email, write simple documents, edit pictures etc. I don't do my company's work on MY laptop, so I don't need office (all of the office documents sent to me by Windows users I can read on GoogleDocs anyway).
The best part is how much time I have spent doing administrative tasks, zero, nada, none, zilch.
I could give a chromebook to most anyone with a few minutes of instruction and they could just use it.