Chromebooks Have a Lucrative Year; Should WinTel Be Worried? 321
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."
There are a lot of people eating their hats (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems like Google found a pretty good formula there. I'm not sure Chromebooks will ever be even the single #1 overall netbook OS, lots of people need support for things Chrome doesn't do, but it is pretty impressive that they've got this much market penetration. I'd have scoffed at the possibility a year ago myself.
Re:How many don't use the chrome part? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is what I hear from everyone I know who has one. I know of 7 people with Chromebooks, they either wiped Chrome off or left it getting dusty on a shelf, one or two given to someone else. I must state that none of these people bought their Chromebooks, they were given for free from Google.
So, does anyone actually know of anyone who has bought one? Why do they sell well on Amazon? A race to the bottom to release cheap hardware, Chrome OS machines being one of the only ones left as OEMs have learnt that racing to the bottom doesn't work.
Amazing $200 Linux laptops (Score:5, Interesting)
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. [phoronix.com]
The C720 is one of the few x86 Chromebooks on the market and the best damn value I think for a portable Linux laptop.
Re:Amazing $200 Linux laptops (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How many don't use the chrome part? (Score:5, Interesting)
Totally Underappreciated Taiwanese Geeks (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
ARM Sales (Score:2, Interesting)
Just curious how the ratio of ARM/x86 there was.
It was really nice to see a ARM entry into the market, but no one seems to know its there..
Re:How many don't use the chrome part? (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone that bought a couple of these... (Score:2, Interesting)
They were Christmas gifts to a couple family members that mostly use computers for web browsing. In their case it was a perfect fit, and to my surprise, you can get a lot of functionality through Chrome apps for if you want to go beyond web browsing. I also specifically told them I could put another Linux distribution on them if they didn't like what it could do by itself, but I haven't got any such requests from either one.
tl:dr, they're good computers for what I'd venture to say the majority of people use their computers for, including said family members. I can see reason for Microsoft to be concerned.
Re:Betteridge's law of headlines (Score:5, Interesting)
some Chromebooks use Intel chips, so Intel is probably getting a cut of this
That helps Intel, not the Wintel duopoly. In fact it helps wean Intel away from Wintel so its all good.
Chromebooks aren't the reason why Windows is hurting
True, the point is that a significant segment of the market is willing to buy a laptop without Windows. It's a harbinger. It is now evident that running Windows applications is not a killer feature for many customers after all, running a browser is.
Now Android laptops are starting to show up. This development constitutes a far greater threat to Microsoft's income than Chromebooks do, for one simple reason: the Android app market. We are already past the tipping point where 800,000 Android applications have more impact on day to day life than the usual Windows offerings. That enables a robust market segment which will attract further development so that Microsoft's traditional spreadsheet/wordprocessor breadbasket comes under attack. Google helped this along tremendously by buying and releasing Quickoffice as freeware. Libreoffice with an Android interface is not far away. The document processing argument for sticking with Microsoft is rapidly eroding.
Note that Android on laptops does not fit Google's agenda perfectly either: Google would much prefer that the market become entirely dependent on cloud offerings, regardless of whether that is best for the customer. Among other advantages, this lets Google "fix" the little problem that Android is forkable open source. But Android on laptops is now inevitable and is far preferable for Google than Windows or Ios on laptops. Android on laptops will help keep Google out of antitrust court for one thing.
While I am rambling on here, the next domino to fall will be Microsoft's server franchise, which is sustained largely by being the backend for Microsoft's email applications and directory infrastructure. Who needs it when Gmail is so much less bother? Look around you at work: do you already see this trend under way? Yes you do.
Well, what next? Some of us were sure that Microsoft would eventually end up as a console company but several factors now cast doubt on that: Sony is thumping Microsoft in this product cycle; the gamer demographic is shifting to an older, more casual mix that is perfectly happy whiling its time away with cheesy touchscreen games instead of hardcore console blockbusters; and Stream walked. Suddenly it starts to look like Microsoft's traditional PC monopoly could be the last part of the ship to sink and its games business will turn out to be just more dead weight pulling it down faster.
About the only thing Microsoft could do to accelerate its sink rate would be to make Elop CEO. We can only hope.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How many don't use the chrome part? (Score:4, Interesting)
Auto Update is no silver bullet. Microsoft's problems are far more fundemental than that and always have been.
They have spent their 30 years of market dominance trying to prove that cumputing has to be a dire experience. It's no shock that people flee them as soon as they they are able.
Re:Betteridge's law of headlines (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I'd say that Microsoft disagrees with you. Consider this -- their current ad campaign for Windows, which includes primetime television spots, is almost entirely taken up with bashing a Chromebook. No more catchy music or complex choreography, just a plain ad using a reality TV star to talk about how a Chromebook doesn't have all the stuff that Windows has (oddly not mentioning BSODs), and so is worthless.
Maybe Microsoft is spending millions of dollars because they're bored, but that ad sounds like fear to me.
Proximal cause vs ultimate cause (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically because when the company got big, the original set with fire in the belly, passion, and competition cashed out or burnt out. The second echelon came in, used short term policies got their goodies and went out. The management that remained all came of age when Microsoft was so dominant they could put out start ups that could threaten them just by press releases of vaporware. They used every trick in the book to leverage their monopoly status. They never learnt any new tricks and they can not thrive in a real level playing field without monopoly advantages.
May be it is a harsh assessment, and company that big could never be managed well, not in fast changing computer business.
Re:Betteridge's law of headlines (Score:3, Interesting)
I always chuckle when someone tries to claim that Android being open source is somehow a problem. It's worked out well for Google...
You're putting words in my mouth. It's not me who thinks Android open source is a problem that needs to be solved, it's certain elements of Google management. Dangerous wankers obviously but what's new.