Is Chrome OS Threatening Windows? (arstechnica.com)

Ars Technica sees new $600 "premium Chromebooks" Dell, Samsung, HP, and Lenovo as a growing challenge to Windows, proving that Chrome OS is reaching beyond the education market. These $600 machines aren't aimed at those same students. Lenovo reps told us that its new Chromebook was developed because the company was seeing demand for Chromebooks from users with a bit more disposable income. For example, new college students that had used Chrome OS at high school and families who wanted the robustness Chrome OS offers are looking for machines that are more attractive, use better materials, and are a bit faster and more powerful. The $600 machines fit that role.

And that's why Microsoft should be concerned. This demand shows a few things. Perhaps most significantly of all, it shows that Chrome OS's mix of Web applications, possibly extended with Android applications, is good enough for a growing slice of home and education users. Windows still has the application advantage overall, but the relevance of these applications is diminishing as Web applications continue to improve... Second, this demand makes clear that exposure to Chrome OS in school is creating sustained interest in, and even commitment to, the platform. High school students are wanting to retain that familiar environment as they move on. The ecosystem they're a part of isn't the Windows ecosystem. Finally, it also shows that Chrome OS's relatively clean-slate approach (sure, it's Linux underneath, but it's not really being pushed as a way of running traditional Linux software) has advantages that are appealing even to home users. The locked down, highly secure Chrome OS machines require negligible maintenance while being largely immune to most extant malware.

Comments

Keep in mind

[dnaumov]

This is mostly a US phenomena. Outside of US, most education institutions donâ(TM)t even know what a Chromebook is. In my country, I am yet to see my first Chromebook outside of ads, in an actual real environment.

Something worse than ChromeOS

[Ol Olsoc]

Want to know what Microsoft might be really concerned about? This is half on Topic since it's about what Microsoft should be worried about.

My wife bought me a new inexpensive small form factor laptop for my use at breakfast and places I don't want to take my good laptop.

A cute little thing, and surprisingly zippy. It had a 32 GByte SSD which helped with that zip.

Then a Windows update came along. Oopsies - it failed. Not enough drive space.

Okay, I attached a terabyte drive to download the update. It downloaded, then again - Not enough drive space on the laptop. That's weird, the only thing I installed was FireFox, something like 350 MByte.

Oh hell. So I started deleting things I don't need. Then things I thought would probably be reinstalled with the update.

Couldn't get below needing another GByte of space on the laptop. So I reset it and took it back.

Looking around for another small form factor lappy, it seemed they almost all had those 32 GByte SSD's in them. And many of the display ones had the same "not enough space" for the update Windows.

So congratulations Microsoft - you have taken us down the road we were on with "Vista Ready" Laptops.

A generation of worthless lappys.

Re:Microsoft seen this threat before

[MightyYar]

You don't have a Chromebook. I can tell because you think it only works when the internet is active. That's true if you want to collaborate (duh), and it's true if you want to play on YouTube - but the office applications work with local storage. It's not my cup of tea, but these things are wonderful if you have kids - under $200, super easy to disassemble and fix (there's nothing in them), very good battery life, and nearly impossible to bugger up the OS.