Google’s Chrome OS Book Address

Google has just introduced the world to the brand new Chromebook. The Chromebook is unlike most laptops because it is optimised for web use. Google arent interested in making software, so they have decided to basically turn Google Chrome into the operating system for a new laptop.

This week at Google’s I/O developer conference, the company announced the general availability of two Chrome OS Laptops. Both Best Buy and Amazon will be selling the devices made by Acer and Samsung. 

Google also teased a new reference Chromebook for developers (meaning you can’t buy it) that will feature the new hardware specs. Like the two consumer models, it will be shipped out on June 15 to those at the conference.

Google also announced a very compelling business package where organizations could lease the Chrome Books for $28 per month per user. The $28 price tag includes the laptop, full warranty, support, service, end of life replacement and a device called the Chrome Box to allow companies to connect the Chrome Book to the corporate file systems.

In my opinion, this is an important evolutionary step for the device market, for both consumers and corporate workers. Almost every part of technology has transformed to be web optimized. To quote my colleague, Sandra Palumbo, “we access what we want, when we want” because we’re always connected.

One might argue that the tablet addresses the cloud era – and it does – but tablets are largely display optimized devices. That is they’re great for presentations, for watching movies, playing games, but the lack of keyboard makes it a poor input device. For that we still need to rely on laptops, running Windows that were built for an era of portability and not mobility with an optimized user experience.

The Chrome Book is designed to address a world where we live in the cloud. We put documents, movies and music in the cloud, we collaborate through the cloud and generally use the cloud as our main information repository. This is only possible because we have near ubiquitous access. So in my mind, Chrome Book is the first device really designed with the connected user in mind who wants to do more than display information.