Is Chrome OS Threatening Windows? (arstechnica.com) 312
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.
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.
Microsoft seen this threat before (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft seen this threat before (Score:5, Insightful)
just like they stopped Linux netbooks by licensing Windows XP cheaply to OEMS on netbooks.
That's not what stopped Linux-based netbooks, otherwise we'd still have Windows based netbooks. Tablets and smartphones killed the netbook [theregister.co.uk].
Re: Microsoft seen this threat before (Score:2, Interesting)
Windows 10 licenses are currently free for devices that comply with certain hardware limitations (screen size, RAM).
Every student wants a MacBook, most wind up with a Windows laptop, and a few will likely settle for a chromebook, but at $600 there are a dozen alternative windows laptops sitting in the same aisle as these 'premium' chromebooks with prices lower than the chromebook and similar hardware specs.
When was the last time a kid said 'I prefer my chromebook to a windows or Mac laptop?' Do you think a
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When was the last time a kid said 'I prefer my chromebook to a windows or Mac laptop?'
I think most people who compare a $200-$300 Windows laptop to a Chromebook picks the Chromebook. I think you're really underestimating how popular Chromebooks are [amazon.com]. Remember that those inexpensive Windows laptops are a response to the popularity of Chromebooks.
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Microsoft came out with a revived XP for netbooks. In doing so, MS specified the maximum spec, limiting screen resolution (below 1024x768), RAM and CPU.
The problem for MS was that people found they didn't *need* Office and other MS software. They could do the the things they wanted with out it.
Later on, AJAX came out. More powerful computing devices that were not x86 (ARM smartphones) couldn't run Windows. MS couldn't do anything to affect those developments.
College students started having smart phones
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Netbooks leveraged two things. The cost of low-end laptop components had gotten so low that the most expensive items in the bill of materials was the CPU and the Windows license. The original Asus EEE PC 700 (2007) used a little-known Celeron M processor [wikipedia.org] and Linux to minimize these two major cost items. When netbook sales began taking off, Intel and Microsoft moved to protect their duopoly. Intel kicked off
Re: Microsoft seen this threat before (Score:3)
What surprises me is that this hasn't significantly affected cellphone prices. With laptops cheaper than cellphones you would think that would put downward pressure on cellphone prices and people would think twice before spending $500+ on a phone.
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It was certainly ready enough to force MS to practically give away their OS.
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The distro included on the original Netbook, the Asus EeePC 701 / 4G, Xandros, was terrible. Replacing it with a Ubuntu derivative (or any other name brand distro) was preferable. The computer shipped with Linux, but half the manual talked about installing Windows XP, and the included DVD had Windows drivers. I think it was a move by Asus to try and get low cost XP licenses from Microsoft, rather than Microsoft trying to prevent the spread of Linux.
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Re:Microsoft seen this threat before (Score:5, Interesting)
The ecosystem is rather different now, though. One wonders how much power MS can wield against Chromebooks. They've been helpless to stop Android or iOS (now markets that completely dwarf their old Windows monopoly). About the only thing I can think of where they could sabotage the rise of things like Chromebooks would be their still-extant stranglehold over Office file formats, but that's definitely less important than it used to be.
If Chromebooks really do take over, even MacOS will have to get worried. Anyone has access to the Google campus? What's the ratio of MacBooks vs. Pixelbooks now?
Re:Microsoft seen this threat before (Score:4, Insightful)
Suure, we'll all live in the cloud. Because, fuck privacy and the internet is always available, right?
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Imagine you have the world's most bloated operating system, supporting legacy APIs so old and iteratively patched and fixed that your code base has become pretty wretched. So wretched, you had to give it away after charging for it for years, losing much of your appeal. But big business and gov bought your stuff like lemmings.
The Chromebook is a wickedly tawdry attempt at a cloud access device, but it plays videos, and allows online fun and games at a snail's pace, with hardly any storage or computational po
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They gave it away, not because it was bad (it was, but that's beside the point). They did it to seed the market for their whole new Matro application platform - but it was already too late for that.
Most Windows users use it the same way they would use a Chromebook. And business users use it out of inertia or for some legacy win32 application they count on in some business process. The rest (gamers, content producers) are a blip in the universe of Windows desktop users. That's just the truth.
Re:Microsoft seen this threat before (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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When you can't buy Minecraft (Java) anymore (Score:2)
when the day comes and microsoft abandons java minecraft people will still be able to run it because it does not depend on any servers and markus made sure it has zero drm.
But how will people new to Minecraft obtain a lawfully made copy to run in a JVM? Microsoft will still own the copyright after it withdraws Minecraft (for Java platform) from distribution and will still have every right to issue notices of claimed infringement, followed by a lawsuit a month later like Nintendo did with those ROM sites a few weeks back.
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Mostly it would be about getting a full JVM
Minecraft usually packs in a JVM. Since Jigsaw in Java 9 it's a lot easier to drop the pieces of the JVM that you don't need and then package a trimmer JVM into your executable. You just need a binary shim that loads the minimal JVM and then that JVM loads your program. So pretty much, if you are after a specific target, you don't need to get a full JVM implemented any more. That said, for the Chromebooks that support it, there's an Android Minecraft that can already be ran on Chromebooks with that whol
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How is Linux with battery capacity now?
It's good. Obviously, Linux is getting good battery life on your phone. Intel hired a bunch of Linux kernel devs and got power management working fine on their desktop and laptop processors. Chromebook I can't vouch for... oddly enough, Google is most unhelpful about providing tech specs for hardware drivers. You need to check forums to see which Chromebooks are fully supported including power management and GPU.
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ChromeOS is Linux.
But not compatible with X11/Linux applications unless you A. buy one of the few Chromebook models that support Crostini, B. risk accidental powerwashing on every boot, or C. open the case and turn the screw, after which point good luck getting the power jack fixed under warranty.
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Nowadays, with the advance of mobile devices, are they still powerful enough to do that?
Re:Microsoft seen this threat before (Score:5, Interesting)
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School kids are growing up to become consumers that likely will prefer what they're used to using.
That's why I bought an Apple II when I graduated highschool 15 years ago, it's what I was used to using in elementary.
Re: Microsoft seen this threat before (Score:2, Funny)
The ASR-33 I used in High School would have been affordable, but a hassle to keep running, 15 years ago. The HP minicomputer on the MERITS timesharing network would have been more of a challenge but probably attainable. Getting a good fresh source of enough yellow punched tape to save my programs and data onto would probably be the deal breaker.
The browser couldn't replace the OS (Score:2)
They're already giving Win 10 to OEMs for $5-$7 dollars on Chromebook class computers. Adjusted for inflation that's cheaper than the $5 you'd pay for WinXP on a Netbook back in the day (the figures tend to leak because OEMs are pretty pissed at Microsoft).
Moreover the writing's on the wall for Microsoft's intentions. They want to go the Mac route of making both hardware and software and having
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I expect Microsoft to eventually crack down hard on Chromebooks, just like they stopped Linux netbooks by licensing Windows XP cheaply to OEMS on netbooks.
That is not how Microsoft stopped Linux netbooks, at least that is not the main way. Microsoft's main tactic was to contractually bind OEMs to limit the power of Linux netbooks, while offering more powerful netbooks running Windows. Yes, blatantly illegal, but the DoJ had lost, or been stripped of, the will to prosecute by that time.
Now Microsoft seems to have lost control of the OEMs, at least to the extent that they can't stop them from designing and selling Chromebooks. Usually, Microsoft threatens to ra
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I think you mistyped NetworkComputers :-) ... the sun/netscape strategy to put JavaOS terminals everwhere.
The reason IE won was because it was a better browser if you can believe it. My opinion is not popular today on slashdot in 2018 but ask any old senior web developer? IE had less rendering bugs (if you can believe this too!!), CSS support, dynamic HTML aka Ajax, more stable, faster, and used less memory.
Without IE gmail would not be. To have web apps required ajax and or dynamic html which IE had.
Netsca
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Microsoft is already giving away Windows for free or very cheaply on low-end computers, so the cost of it isn't an issue there. Chromebooks are winning in education despite the fact that they have little or no advantage in purchase price over a low end Windows laptop. They do have advantages in administration cost, and that's a big force that is driving sales.
There are multiple tiers of entry level devices; the highest level for notebook computers as of 2017 called for a "low-end CPU" (term not defined, but
In Exchange for your Privacy (Score:3)
Well, they stand to make a fortune in advertising by tracking your every purchase, retail visit, and waking moment and selling the info.
So it's subsidized by your private information.
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If these things succeed in being sold in volume - then yes, Crysis other games & programs will be ported to it. Corporations do things for the money, not the ideology. A port to Chromebook would make a port to other Linux easy, so we might see a flourishing of new stuff available on Linux. A Chromebook is ideal for many users, they 'consume' the web, generate little other than email/facebook/twitter/... posts -- thus they don't need something where typing is good.
Microsoft will try to kill it; offer inc
Re: Microsoft seen this threat before (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft will try to kill it; offer incentives, eg: reduced/zero app store fee if they don't sell the Chromebook port.
With 95% desktop market share, MS isn't going to lose much sleep over $600 chromebooks - the threat isn't real, people who like chromebooks rely on Corp/school district IT departments to make the chrome os environment as useable as say a windows notebook - remove IT Department support and Chrome OS is less attractive to the average user than a Linux notebook/netbook, and at $600 you can get a very capable windows laptop from any major manufacturer (except Apple, which really starts at $1K).
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Agreed.
I'm 72 years old and saw Windows 3.0 (running in DOS) refresh the screen every time a user would step into another directory in File Manager.
I uninstalled that crapware and did not allow it to run the business.
Then, Windows 3.1 came out and fixed that and we were off and running.
I'm retired now and my impression is that Microsoft is damned well tired of Windows.
I think they want to get that albatross detached from the business model.
Windows 10 is very high maintenance for them and Office is, as well.
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Game consoles are for running vanilla versions of well-known games. They aren't for a developer's commercial debut or for enthusiast-maintained mods.
2019: the year of the linux desktop (Score:3)
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Again?
ChromeOS is Web Appliance software (Score:2)
The Microsoft Ecosystem Is A Dead End (Score:5, Insightful)
Hard to believe anyone can be surprised by this news.
I am the 'computer guy' to a large number of friends, family members, and neighbors. Over the past few years every single person I've helped with their computer problems has used their Microsoft computer for nothing more than email, webbrowsing, pictures, and movies. They used their computers less and less each year with more and more of the tasks listed above on their cellphones.
Long gone are the days when almost every person needed to have Internet Explorer to do any sort of online banking. Any consumer company in 2018 is making sure that their services and content is a first class experience on Android and iOS.
Exacerbating many of the people I help is that not only do they have no use of Windows apps their Windows systems get trashed by viruses or spyware or other random problems while their cellphones just work.
All of these people would be better served by a Chromebook or something similar but almost none of them are aware of what they are. The demand would be even greater if these people understood that all of the problems they constantly are coming to me with are exactly what the Chromebook was designed to solve.
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"Exacerbating many of the people"...errrmmm...people are become worse as problems?
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Why aren't you steering them to chromebooks so they don't need support from you?
I'm a heavy user of multiple xterms on a linux laptop at home. I have android tablets and phones and a chromebook with android apps.
If I could get X11 (not VNC) on my chromebook, I'd get a new laptop to replace the Linux laptop.
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Hard to believe anyone can be surprised by this news.
I am the 'computer guy' to a large number of friends, family members, and neighbors. Over the past few years every single person I've helped with their computer problems has used their Microsoft computer for nothing more than email, webbrowsing, pictures, and movies. They used their computers less and less each year with more and more of the tasks listed above on their cellphones.
It makes more sense if you think of a Chromebook as an alternative to a phone, rather than a cut-rate laptop or desktop. It's _way_ easier to multi-task on a Chromebook than on a phone or tablet (OMG, don't even), and for many people that's kind of the end of the story. The billions of users on the Internet are not just like the millions of users in the 90's, scaled up, their needs are different.
I was going to make a lame car/truck analogy, then I realized it wasn't that lame. Not everyone needs a big-as
Yes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows: Pay to get observed.
Chrome OS: Get observed but get something for it. For free.
Disclaimer: I'm typing this on a Chromebook. That is basically unheard of here in Europe, especially in Germany. I wanted to test having big brother observe me all time every time at all I do to the fullest extent and see what the trade-in for that is. Since I exclusively do web development and have all my everyday stuff in the web and mostly with Google anyway the benefit is palpable. Linux is a close second, but mostly because the disto landscape is a mess and you can't get a neat ARM laptop for 450 Euros that runs 10 hours on one charge and boots in less than 10 seconds and has everything pre-installed. Everything meaning also my entire setup and history with Google. (I'm using an Acer R13 Chrombook, it has replaced my 2011 MB Air).
It's not all disadvantages that Google watches over you is my point. Right now the Google ecosystem is what I recommend to anyone who knows nothing about computers and has little or no budget. My other Chromebook costed 120 Euros and the new 11" ones from Dell come 199 Euros a pop. New and without firesale.
Add in that a n00b using big brother doesn't have to think for a second how he will get his pictures from his phone on to his laptop or the printer and wether his stuff is lost if his notebook shatters and you easyly understand why we all happyliy carry our high-end televisor around with us and even love it.
Google is your friend.
Google watches over you.
Everybody loves Google.
Trust Google.
Googles model is that of the future and MS and others are going to have long-term problems competing with that unless they somehow manage to establish a solid "Cloud brand" with their presence. Which I don't really see happing. Windows only still has some traction because office people do wee-wee in their panties if they don't get their outlook, and MS office. Other than that Google owns, by convenience and by price, many times over.
That's my impression anyway. Many an expert in my field that I know are actually using Chromebooks and enjoy the enablement that comes with going all-out cloud, surveillance be damned.
So, yes, Chrome OS is a threat to Windows. And a big one.
My 2 eurocents.
Recurring cloud storage bill (Score:2)
a n00b using big brother doesn't have to think for a second how he will get his pictures from his phone on to his laptop or the printer and wether his stuff is lost if his notebook shatters
Which becomes replaced with worry about losing his stuff if his cloud storage bill payment doesn't go through, or about losing access once he hits the ISP's data quota for the month.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
B. Windows is used for a lot of things other than Office and Outlook.
B1. There's no good replacement for Outlook.
If all you're doing is Face/Gram/Tweeting, and you don't care about some Global MegaCorp reading everything you do online, then yes, just stay with a Chromebook.
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Microsoft keeps track of how you're using Windows, not the contents.
How do you know that?!
B1. There's no good replacement for Outlook.
Yes, Outlook via Citrix works even on Chromebooks, cellphones and tablets (probably on smart watches too).
Sun got so many things right (Score:4, Insightful)
"The Network Is The Computer"
everything old is new again
Cloud, network computing, "dumb" terminals... it's like how there's a push towards game streaming as well. If the network bandwidth and latency gets good enough, you don't actually need to have a GTX1080 class GPU in your machine... computing history just seems to oscillate between local computing power vs. "do it on the mainframe and use a terminal"
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Except those dumb terminals were just that, dumb terminals. They wouldn't work at all if the network wasn't available.
We're talking about Chromebooks here though.
Obviously a Chromebook can't load a webpage or access my google drive if it's offline, but it's identical to how Windows can't access a webpage or OneDrive if it's offline.
You can only run local applications and use local storage while not on the Internet.
It's not the same thing as a dumb terminal at all.
Re: Sun got so many things right (Score:2)
The required bandwidth wasn't there back then.
What it offers consumers is a maintenance free platform that invisibly updates.
$600 Chromebook $500 android/iPad/Surface Tablet (Score:3)
but the $600 Chromebook $300 laptop (even one running windows) in terms of functionality, storage, available applications... The $300 laptop may be a bit thicker.
Now if you toss linux on the $300 laptop, it gets much better...
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Did you account for the fact that the Windows laptop comes with Windows 10, so it will reboot when bubba Microsoft says so, and it will upgrade, install or deinstall what bubba Microsoft says it will? That's my number one problem with Windows 10, and the main reason I avoid it as a plague.
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About a year and a half ago, I purchased a Dell Laptop (Core i5, integrated graphics, 500gb HDD) because a) my Samsung tablet had just shattered and b) I needed something to do schoolwork on that could be taken to my local 2 year college and used on their premises.
(Note that a pencil and a spiral notebook would have been just as effective for 90% of my work there...)
It cost me ~ $450 US. The Chromebooks and Android tablets that were equivalent and available were in the $300-$400 range. The laptop came with
Pressure from two directions (Score:2)
So Microsoft are under pressure from two directions: the very cheapest c
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Keep in mind (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Be careful of generalizations (Score:2)
Maybe in *your* country most educational institutions don't even know what a Chromebook is...
But, in Canada, the Windows machine is going the way of the dodo. ChromeOS is very dominant in K-12 schools and boards are pushing Google Classroom for their students' email and project/assignments.
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Re: Keep in mind (Score:2)
Chromebook to me looks like an option for somebody who is balking at paying the price of iPad Pro + Smart Keyboard. But is there anything a Chromebook is objectively better at besides price? And I mean for the average user (so donâ(TM)t start going on about running Linux on it).
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In Education-Yes. Magic 8 Ball Says Future Cloudy. (Score:2)
I would definitely expect ChromeOS to displace Windows in the K-12 Education market (if they haven't already, I haven't looked at the latest numbers).
Where will things be in 10 years as these students go to college? I would be surprised if ChromeOS made significant gains in CompSci simply because it is pretty limited for teaching. As other people have noted, it really needs some native app development capability and I don't see that happening in sub $200 machines. Maybe for non-technical college courses
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Replace testing with formal verification (Score:2)
As other people have noted, it really needs some native app development capability and I don't see that happening in sub $200 machines.
Hardware-wise, I don't see how "sub $200 machines" can't develop native apps. I used to run DJGPP, a distribution of GCC for MS-DOS, on a 1990s PC with a 25 MHz 486SX CPU and 8 MB (that's 0.008 GB) of RAM. Perhaps the real reason why today's "sub $200 machines" can't develop native apps is that the manufacturer locks them down to prevent native app development, with the intent of selling services to replace the locked-out parts. Notice how only the most expensive Chromebooks nowadays can run Crostini, the c
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I have a $150 Dell Chromebook 15 and Crostini runs in dev mode just fine, so I suspect it's just a matter of time until that build makes it into beta.
I see a pattern here (Score:2)
When iOS first came out MS largely ignored it. Then the iPhone became popular with the youngsters, youngsters of CEOs who also started using them. Next thing you know, the CEO wants to be able to use an iPhone at work.
Apple penetrated the corporate network from the outside in. I see the same thing happening with Chromebooks. The college kids of today are the future CEOs of tomorrow and they too will demand that their Chromebooks work in a corporate environment.
The enterprise is the last stranglehold that MS
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pattern of 1
brillant
Something worse than ChromeOS (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Maybe for non-computing students (Score:2)
But students in most computing programs will need specific software which is not available for Chromebooks, and which only runs on Windows.
Other, better OSs are Chrome's biggest threat. (Score:2)
Windows is not being challenged by an OS. Until Microsoft completely messes things up most people (especially on the desktop or laptop) will continue to use Windows. When that happens I doubt that Chrome OS will fill in the gap as I suspect Google could screw things up just as well as Microsoft can---maybe even faster. The real question should be "Could Chrome OS ever dominate against the other OSs in a MS Windows vacuum?"
No one likes windows - they tolerate it (Score:2)
No one likes windows or trust microsoft, they tolerate it and use it because it's what the habit is, but overall, windows sucks, and is the old man that just won't die. Microsoft knows this, google knows this, and apple knows this. That's why microsoft is doubling down on subscriptions for every stupid thing, keep the money coming in as long as they can, and developing for other platforms, it may take another decade, but windows is on the way out for the home user, and the corporate world after that.
Want to
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"Windows is like taking a 18 wheeler to 7-11 for milk, "
This is why I switched to Linux many years ago. Windows is just too much, layers and layers of too much. It has just grown too complex.
That said, no Chromebooks for me - I'll just use Linux, with my local apps, and my local storage. The kids don't seem to care about privacy anymore, and that's their business. I just don't want my stuff on someone else's computer. You know it is going to be compromised sooner or later, even with the best of intentions.
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You are far more technical than most, and know proper procedures on what to do, and how to save your data. I've fixed way too many computers that crashed from something they installed, and they just lost 10 years of data and photos because they did not know what they are doing, this is where chrome shines, those users will no longer lose the photos of their kids growing up, or notes, you would be the 10% of users.
Wow, that's amazing! (Score:2)
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.
Can we dial down the 'techtonic shift' rhetoric until these more expensive chrome books start actually selling in large numbers?
It's one thing to sell a literal truckload of chronebooks to a school district where users have no choice in the platform and it's a completely different thing to sell $600 chrome books next to $500 windows laptops and $1k MacBooks in your local Best Buy showroom.
How 'wonderful' is the chrome book environment when you don't have your school district's IT department managing it for
188 posts, no Betteridge references (Score:2)
I guess it only applies when you WANT the answer to be “no”.
It's a new twist for MS to think about (Score:2)
As it stands today, Chrome OS isn't anything for MS to be concerned about. Tomorrow, however, things get a bit more complicated.
Fast forward a bit where MS jumps on the subscription bandwagon and things will get interesting.
Hell, it might even finally be the " Year of the Linux Desktop ".
The amusing part is greed by MS is what will kick this snowball off the mountaintop.
No. (Score:2)
Next question, please.
Re: Microsoft worry? Not in my world... (Score:2, Insightful)
Google docs
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Agreed, even though the Office "lock in" has been weakened... it's still there. Given the choice between having continual compatibility worries with clients/customers, vs. just paying the MS tax... companies will just pay it.
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Companies are outsourcing their email hosting, to either Google's G Suite, or Microsoft's O365. If you're paying MS to host your email, you might as well use their office suite.
Re: Microsoft worry? Not in my world... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, that isn't correct. Many of the applications you describe are now server based with web interfaces, if not out right cloud based with web interfaces.
For the one or two legacy apps that aren't, they are accessed thru RDP or Citrix.
In my office of 200, with 160 of those not in IT, we're finishing a transition to Chromebook or iPad for everyone. The pulpit were very well and this is much easier to support.
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Going the google way has given my company a advantage that others do not have, and has helped with growth beyond what any of us expected, my construction workers can use the stuff easily, if they trash it, it isn't 3 hours of re-setup, and their kids can't install all their crap on them. Simple, and easy, now to the point that the guy that can push the power switch, has more information available to them than the builders that are using the m$ solutions which end up being way more complex than turn on and s
Re: Microsoft worry? Not in my world... (Score:2)
You had to prepend 'shitty' a few times there, out of fear. Don't let your fear cloud your judgement.
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See, the cloud sucks ;)
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I think, if you ever used a Chromebook, that you are not playing with LInux native applications in Developer Mode.
Taking into consideration that it is Beta software and that some features (as sound) are not ready, they work very well. I have a Samsung Chromebook Plus machine and I see no difference between a full Linux machine and this Chromebook running the software. But some people will complain, that these programs are just Linux and not ChromeOS native applications as the Windows ones.
The main di
Re: (Score:3)
I think, if you ever used a Chromebook, that you are not playing with LInux native applications in Developer Mode.
For some, this is because developer mode is too easy to accidentally powerwash [slashdot.org] unless you're willing to risk voiding what's left of your hardware warranty by turning the firmware write-protect screw. They're waiting for the majority of Chromebooks in use to support Crostini, a container to run GNU/Linux native applications within verified Chrome OS.
And ... why not to mix them in the same machine? The heavy things running in the new LInux compartments and the Graphical stuff in the Browser?
Because many Chromebooks still in use have a kernel older than Linux 3.15. Crostini's container technology reportedly requires a kernel-level containment feature
Not everybody is proficient at soldering (Score:2)
Some people are confident enough to replace socketed components, such as RAM and SSD, but not soldered ones, such as the power jack. I currently fall in this category and have had to have a Dell laptop's power jack repaired under warranty.
Re: (Score:2)
The main difference now is that the Web browser, in particular Chrome, grew to be an extremely powerful Graphical User Interface by itself, even capable of running games.
Chrome is spiritual successor to EMACS.
Re: (Score:2)
And that's why Microsoft should be concerned.
These fellas are smoking something. Until Chrome OS can have "native" applications like Windows does, MS doesn't have to worry. Where is Chorome OS' equivalent of Microsoft office?
I have an answer for you: Nothing.
Oh yeah, this old chestnut. So does a computer not work unless it has Microsoft Office on it? I haven't used Microsoft office since the went to the ribbon interface, and before my Chromebook met it's end via 22 oz of hot coffee, I used Google Docs On My Macs and Windows machines I use Apache Office.
Re: (Score:2)
A huge, bloated, monster of an application that has entered it's dying-star phase of feature-supernova.
The only reason I ever use it over the lighter, faster, easier-to-use Google Docs or Libreoffice is because other people seem hopelessly addicted to it and its the only way to ensure stuff I produce will render correctly when they see it.
Here you go (Score:2)
Microsoft is willing to give some ground on Windows in exchange for subscription revenue for office.
Re: (Score:2)
Apart from business who locked themselves in with macros, the answer is nobody. It's never been a problem. Why is this even insightful.
I've seen more issues with MS Office compatibility with itself than anything else.
Re: (Score:2)
And that's why Microsoft should be concerned.
These fellas are smoking something. Until Chrome OS can have "native" applications like Windows does, MS doesn't have to worry. Where is Chorome OS' equivalent of Microsoft office?
I have an answer for you: Nothing.
What is Microsoft Office, some sort of teleconferencing system? You can do teleconferencing on Chromebooks, no problem.
Re: (Score:2)
These fellas are smoking something. Until Chrome OS can have "native" applications like Windows does, MS doesn't have to worry. Where is Chorome OS' equivalent of Microsoft office?
I have an answer for you: Nothing.
And your answer is wrong.
The equivalent of Microsoft office is built into the OS and runs locally.
Then there is the REAL Microsoft office that runs on it too, just as it does on Windows, which is right here: https://www.office365.com/ [office365.com]
Then there is LibreOffice if you don't mind that route, which installs and runs local on the Chromebook exactly like it does on Windows.
That's one two three times you are flat out wrong.
You should also be educated on the fact "until" implies future tense, yet as chrome os has h
A popular selling platform that uses VBA (Score:2)
How good is Google Sheets at running the client-side product feed validation macro in the Excel workbook that Amazon provides to professional sellers on its platform? This macro is written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and lets a seller test a product feed for common problems before submitting the file to Amazon's server for authoritative validation.
Prevalidation reduces burning through upload quota (Score:2)
A file submitted to the Marketplace Web Service counts against the server-side throttling whether it is valid or not. A file rejected as invalid by a VBA macro before upload to MWS does not. In addition, macros allow completion of category names, condition names, and the like.
Re: Year of the linux desktop all over again (Score:2)
I know what my wife uses her laptop for. 95% of it she could do on a Chromebook. The killer right now would be Java Minecraft. Microsoft owns Mojang, though, and I suspect there will never be a Minrcraft port to the Chromebook. That's specifically a good reason for Microsoft taking over Mojang.