Are Chromebooks Responsible For PC Market Growth? (theverge.com)

From a report on The Verge: IDC claims the PC market is "up slightly," recording its first growth in five years. It's a tiny growth of just 0.6 percent, but it's a flattening of the market that Microsoft and its PC maker partners have been looking for after years of decline. While percentage growth looks good on paper, it doesn't always tell the whole story. Over at Gartner, another market research firm that tracks PC sales, the story is a little different. Gartner claims PC shipments declined 2.4 percent in the recent quarter. There's a good reason for the disparity between IDC and Gartner's figures, and it involves Chromebooks. IDC's data includes Chromebooks and excludes Windows tablets, even machines with a detachable keyboard like the Surface Pro. Gartner counts Windows-based tablets as PCs and excludes Chromebooks or any non-Windows-based tablets. Without IDC providing the exact split of Chromebooks sold vs. Windows- and macOS-based machines, it's impossible to know exactly how well Google's low-cost laptops are selling. However, IDC also claims that Chromebooks are doing well with businesses. The US commercial PC market "came out strong mostly backed by growth of Chromebooks," says IDC. Gartner has no opinion on Chromebooks as the company refuses to track them as PCs.

Comments

As Mark Twain said

[Nunya666]

Mark Twain wasn't the first to say it, but he made it popular: There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

All statistics are bogus because they depend on what data you do or do not include, and/or who you do or do not include in the survey that generates the statistic.

How many Chromebook buys are accidental?

[Anonymous Coward]

I often wonder how many Chromebook purchases are made accidentally. They are usually the cheapest notebook looking computers in online and physical stores. Average people probably don't realize that they run Chrome OS instead of Windows, too. So these average people buy Chromebooks thinking they're getting an inexpensive Windows laptop, but instead get something much less than that. I could see people buying them accidentally, not realizing what they are actually getting. At that point it might not even be worth returning the device. It would be cheaper just to gift it to a child as a toy, or even to just throw it on a shelf and forget about it, and to then go out and buy an actual notebook computer running Windows.

Re: Not a dumb terminal - Linux with locked down U

[zoid.com]

Chromebooks are perfect from many situations. I recently replaced my dad's Windows PC with a chromebox and it's made both of our lives much better. Twice a year his PC would be a bogged down mess even with malware / anti virus software. No longer an issue. It's been 6 months and all is good.

Re:Not a dumb terminal - Linux with locked down UI

[mrchaotica]

Can one practically develop an app for a Chromebook on a Chromebook?

Chrome OS apps are glorified web pages, so you can develop them on anything that can run Chrome itself and edit text.

because they could run GCC.

My Chromebook does run GCC, in Crouton.

Works for me!

[mspohr]

A year ago I was facing the decision to replace my aging MacBook Air with one of Apple's expensive but pathetic newer models and decided to get a Chromebook (Asus Flipbook) instead for much less money. Best decision ever!
Not only is the Asus faster than my MacBook (which seems to have gotten slower with every Apple update) but I have access to my Android apps plus apps written for the Chromebook. I use Google docs for all of my wp, presentations and spreadsheets (and great collaborative workspaces).
I've installed Crouton for the times when I need Linux for programming, etc. Just a tab switch from ChromeOS to Linux. Remarkably fast.
Couldn't be happier.
For my uses, it's definitely a PC and does everything I need.