Kogan Beats Samsung and Acer With World's First Chrome OS Laptop 103
cylonlover writes "Australian manufacturer Kogan will ship the world's first notebook featuring Google's open source Chrome OS from June 7. The release date for the 11.6'' Agora Chromium Laptop means that Kogan has pipped Samsung and Acer by just over a week in the race to be the first company to offer a Chromium OS notebook."
Chrome OS will fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
I say this as someone who was on the CR-48 pilot. The reason is not Chrome OS itself: the problem is that cloud-only is impossible for anything serious. One hits a wall in which no web-app suffices to do what needs be done.
For me, the Google eco-system's permanent beta cripples it and ensures the longevity of its competitors. The issues for me? After all these years, there is no bibliography / citation management system for Google Docs that works in the cloud (at least nothing that could work with a Chromebook.) And, you can't define styles in Google docs. The absence of offline mode - the deprecation of Gears without implementing a replacement - was another disaster.
Google's strategy has been to create disruptive technologies, but that's no longer enough. A good anecdote to describe Google's failure to fully deliver is what happened to the founders of Foursquare: after having designed Dodgeball and getting acquired by Google, the were left high-and-dry, their technology more or lest left on a shelf. They got fed up and left, and created what should have been a strong Google product. Google tried to play catch up with Latitude, but it flopped, like all the other half-assed, unfinished products that wind up in its portfolio.
There is a lot Google does right, but it simply can't deliver a full working environment. Fundamental problems in its product management culture will have to be resolved before anything on the scale of a Chrome OS will work.
Re:Beat? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Prevent "ad lockout" ie ready for flash/cookie/tracking/database/web 2.0+ads every start up.
2) Upgrade client side revenue stream technology (allowing a better profiting from web applications)