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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."
I wiped the Chome OS off of the Chrombook. For me it was just a cheap netbook.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
In this case, I think the answer is yes, but the headline is misleading nonetheless. First, some Chromebooks use Intel chips, so Intel is probably getting a cut of this. Microsoft has more to lose than Intel here.
Second, Windows faces competition from a lot more than just Chromebooks, and I'd argue that Chromebooks aren't the reason why Windows is hurting. Rather, Windows netbooks and tablets have failed to be very compelling, so all the other competitors are doing well. I think that, while Chromebooks are getting more compelling, the biggest driver here is that WinTel laptops are getting less compelling faster.
Third, aren't Windows sales dipping across the board, anyway, in favor of more mobile devices? That seems like the biggest threat to WinTel, not Chromebooks.
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!
Actually as a retailer I can tell you not only WHY the Chromebooks had a good year but WHY MSFT had a shit year, ready? The answer to the first is PRICE and the answer to the second is WIN 8 SUCKS.
The Chromebook is proof that MSFT fucked themselves right out of the netbook market. 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. In less than 24 months netbooks went from $179 to $499 and believe me it was NOT the customer asking for features that jacked up the price, as i was having to hunt my ass of to get my hands on the sub $350 netbooks, especially the AMD bobcats, but when the price jumped? Sales died. The fact that MSFT killed a big selling market because it wasn't making "iPad Money" frankly should be no surprise as "I want to work in Cupertino!" has been Ballmer's cry for a good half a decade. All Google did was take that business and as we can see its good business indeed. That is what you get for not listening to your retail channel you fat sweaty bastard Ballmer.
As for the second i could wallpaper this page with "Wow Win 8 REALLY REALLY sucks" articles, but do i even need to do that anymore? Fuck common sense should point out the gaping hole in the premise, Windows 8 is made to be a tablet/cellphone OS and sucks without a touchscreen, people buy Windows for the billions of dollars in legacy Windows programs they have....which are NOT designed for a touchscreen and are as easy to use with a touch UI as trying to touchtype on a 4 inch smartphone while wearing oven mitts. The entire concept is stupid, pointless, and thanks to MSFT having a REALLY shitty "designed by committee" style UI that takes the worst out of both the desktop AND the tablet while taking almost nothing good combined with a "We're smarter than you, you'll take this 'innovation' and learn to like it you lazy luddite" bad attitude? People have made it loud and clear than Win 8 is a giant DO NOT WANT. Hell myself and most of the little shops in my area won't even carry the thing anymore, and all the e-stores have big "We have Win 7" signs so no damned wonder sales are tanking, they might as well have put out "Win 8 Goatse Edition" for all the appeal it has Joe and Jane Normal.
This just goes to show what we retailers have been saying for years...give people what they want (or what they think they want) while giving them the impression you are listening and care about what they want? Watch your sales grow year in and year out. treat the customer like shit, ignore their complaints, and act like you really don't give a rat's ass about them either way like MSFT has been doing? Watch them stay away in droves. Even with the inertia of Windows folks are happily trying Chromebooks NOT because they want some locked down thin client, but because Ballmer and Co has been giving them the bird and have made it clear they ONLY want Apple customers with Apple money and Apple margins. Well I hate to break the news to ya Steve, but Apple customers wouldn't piss on a Surface if it was on fire and Windows customers? they never LIKED Windows, they TOLERATED Windows. Your jacking the price while flipping them the bird over the UI was enough for a large chunk of 'em to go "fuck this bullshit" and start looking for the exits.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.