Submitted by Many people have resisted the idea that Chromebooks really were growing in popularity. Now, less five years after the first commercial Chromebook, the Samsung Series 5 and Acer Chromebook went on sale, NPD, the global retail research group, is reporting that Chromebook sales in June and early July had exceeded “sales of Windows notebooks … passing the 50 percent market share threshold.”
I found this hard to believe, and as it turns out, the author is being clickbaity by burying an important little fact further down in the story: this only applies to B2B channels. I changed the OSNews headline (which is usually just copied) accordingly.
Still, it’s evident that Chromebooks are here to stay, and are, indeed, a huge success.
So far I might have seen around 5 of them on sale on different stores.
Seen them on sale in limited models in the US in brick & mortar stores, but I’ve never run across anyone that actually uses one of them. Most commonly see HP, Dell, and Apple laptops which are infinitely more useful (and certainly more expensive).
I would bet the one question the sales floor associates get the most would be “what games can I get for this” and when the answer is “I don’t know” or “none of the Windows games” that’s where it ends and the customer either looks at the tablets or full laptops.
Wouldn’t at all call them a “huge” success.
Edited 2015-08-14 18:23 UTC
I’ve noticed Amazon in the US has listed them alternately with Mac laptops as the best selling overall year to year.
If it wasn’t so damned expensive I’d use a Chromebook Pixel 2 as my main workstation, both for the portability and the Linux compatibility.
I don’t know how it’s all playing out with numbers and what not, but a few people I know have asked me what I think about Chromebooks. In my experience, they have definitely been successful at making people question “why Windows”.
Google has a lease construction for Chromebooks organisations like education and businesses.
Chromebooks mean: nothing to manage, if it breaks just replace it with a new device and keep working where you left off. Just keep an extra device at the same location and let the broken device be replaces in a couple of hours.
There is no active directory server, no person that needs to be employed or hired to manager desktop machines, set up backups, etc.
Not quite. The first question is usually: “can I run Office on this?” To which the answer is no. If they need, or think they need, Microsoft Office specifically (not the limited online version), that’s usually the point where the discussion ends. However a lot of people at home are getting sick of Office, so that doesn’t mean all people stop being interested.
Now, the first question most people don’t think to ask is: “will it work with my devices?” That’s usually the point where people get frustrated. They buy it, bring it home, and find out that their existing printer doesn’t work (Chrome OS only works with Cloudprint-compatible printers). This is what usually gets them pissed off, and I can’t exactly blame them.
Edited 2015-08-15 07:58 UTC
I really doubt that most people ask or really care about PC gaming. I bet the most common question is about ms office.
I think that’s awesome, because they make for excellent cheap Linux laptops, and you can keep the Chrome OS side installed if you want as well. Even today with so much hardware supported in the kernel, Linux on laptops designed for Windows can be problematic.
I resisted these things until eventually the girlfriend got herself a refurb one for US$169.
If you use specialized tools… if you’re a programmer or artist or sound engineer, you’ll need to set up a remote desktop solution for these to be useful.
But if you don’t use specialized tools, the only significant difference you’ll notice is that your Chromebook’s battery lasts 8 hours instead of a laptop’s 2.
Get one for dear old mother and see how she gets along without a Caps Lock key.
You can install Crouton in your ChromeOS, which means you can have, for example, a full Ubuntu running alongside ChromeOS. Basically a cheap hybrid GNU/Linux laptop. The only thing I don’t like is the crappy limited keyboard layout.
Yeah, because sound engineers use Linux. Sure.
That’s a broad statement. Of course some sound engineers use Linux, you can get very low latencies with it and some technologies like Jack are awesome. And, also of course, most don’t.
The same thing happens with graphics designers: some use Linux (I know a few), but most don’t. I even know one who refuses to use Photoshop on MacOS, he doesn’t like it. His company had to buy a Windows license for him to run Photoshop on Windows on an iMac.
You have all sorts of people, really.
That’s one damned accomodating company. That person had better hold that job, because most of them would buy you a ticket out the door rather than an alternative license.
I have yet to get less than 6 hours out of my XPS 13 running Windows 8.1.
The is my experience based on several months for a real business (public body) doing critical work.
The primary benefit is simplicity. Compared to the Windows and Mac world, there is not a lot, and therefore not a lot to go wrong. Simplicity also translates into stability – I’ve had zero crashes or bugs surfacing over 5 months of use with approx 100 staff and will grow to 300+ users. No need for specialised builds, separate headaches for mail servers, collaboration and office productivity … a 12 year old could get this up and running.
Management – super easy. Really, it doesn’t need to be hard, and it isn’t. Once you do this, you wonder why you ever put up with the horrors and problems and unreliability of the Windows/Mac ecosystem. Maybe there’s job creation going on in that world? You don’t need consultants to get a managed fleet of Chromebooks going.
Security – this is very very good. if you look at most industry and government security frameworks – the combination of Google for Work and Chromebooks ( .. and Android for Work) meets almost all the needs are met with no need for additional software. The Google for Work itself is very well managed – better than most organisations can do themselves. The device have all the good stuff – verified boot, verified binaries, auto-registration, remote disabling, policy pushing, etc … again no need for extra software .. and it is also very very simple and easy. As it should always have been.
The only gap for me is that the Google for Work server-side can’t be set to only be accessible to known-good or Chromebook devices. That is, you could log in with a dirty device and ruin your security. They missed a trick – they could have optionally asserted client-side certificates using standard web methods.
The devices themselves vary – some are rubbish – by which I mean the basics are not right – rubbish keyboard, bad trackpad, low quality screen, poor speed and battery .. not good if you actually want to work. But some devices are fantastic and feel very premium but with very very low prices. The Toshiba 2 13″ with full HD IPS panel is fantastic and very popular with users. Smaller lighter 11″ Acer devices are popular too. I don’t know why some like Dell make terrible keyboards – do they want to upset users?
Apps – if you live in the web – it will all work for you. And for most people this is the case. And in a corporate environment this is increasingly the case – or should be. The web is the new desktop. For legacy apps you can virtualise them and access them over HTML5. Works well where I’ve seen it first hand – but we don’t – we insist on web.
Problems? yes – people want more than the google for work apps give you – like mail mergers and daiagramming tools .. which the app store for google gives you lots of options for – but if your security needs are moderate, you can’t automatically take them. This would be less of a problem if you installed apps – here you are trusting 3rd parties. Maybe Google should run a certification scheme so you could trust 3rd parties better?
Would I do it again – yes. In fact I will never go back to the risk, cost, complexity, pain, instability of the corporate Windows/Mac world willingly.
https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/2015/chrom…
“Yet, while Chromebooks have seen strong demand, it has not necessarily impacted Windows notebooks and MacBooks, which both also posted sales increases, totaling 6 percent and 42 percent respectively.
“The results from the end of Q2 and the first half of July are good news for all the major notebook platforms,†added Baker. “Windows was not impacted by the upcoming release of Windows 10, MacBooks grew the most of any platform, and Google saw Chrome rise to take the number one spot in market share. All these results continue to point to strong channel demand for PCs and continue to belie the notion that any other devices are threatening the long-term business case for the notebook.—
Guess who earns most…
Just as what you did with the Windows as free article:
http://www.osnews.com/story/28747/Why_Microsoft_is_giving_away_Wind…
[Edit] It seems I can’t edit the title of a post.[/edit]
Edited 2015-08-15 05:12 UTC
Only because people hate Windows 8 and basically Chromebooks are very cheap.
Windows 10 will fix this.
Have a nice time in dream land. One failed forced update will wake people up.
The reason why Windows is dominant is also the main reason why Facebook is the dominant social network.
People hated change. Period. So Microsoft Windows will continue to dominate the consumer market, not because of price but because of familiarity.
However, one can build a startup company and use computers in house that is installed with a Linux desktop with LibreOffice as the default document management. Whether the employees like it or not, they must the system to work. This is possible but rarely happens because most people get use to Microsoft products at college. Blame the professors.
Wait what. While what you say is true, that is not the primary reason. There is a little something called network effect. It is a lot stronger with social networks than with operating systems, but still with operating system you go where the applications are, and the applications are where the users were. So users tend to go where users already are.
Google.
Replace Windows 10 with ChromeOS
Replace Microsoft with Google
But has the level of spying and phoning home really gone down that much?
The few Chromebooks I’ve seen were not running Chrome but alternatives like Mint or Ubuntu for these very reasons.
I’d like to see a really detailed comparison of what exactly these devices send back to Google compared to windows10/Microsoft.
Can you really cut the umbilical to the Chocolate Factory without going the whole way and replacing the OS?
How about it Thom?
No, no no!
Microsoft is Evil because it collects data about you and your computer, and supplies updates automatically.
Google is Good, because it collects data about you and your computer, and supplies updates automatically.
Apple is good because you’ll do what Apple damned well wants you to, or switch to Microsoft and/or Google.