back to article Google plays the long game with Chrome OS

Google is betting that slow and steady will prove a winning strategy for its Chrome OS platform, and is reporting some successes for the system in the education sector. It has been a little over a year since Google first showed off ChromeOS, and around six months since the first commercial systems were released for sale by …

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  1. Ian Stephenson
    Go

    They would have more success if they targeted gamers

    A low overhead (compared to windows) operating system with GPU support would make the perfect games platform.

    Incidentally it might also wean developers from DirectX and windows....

    1. HMB

      Overhead Scmoverhead

      It's a bit chicken and egg for that don't you think? With games having high GPU requirements and best suiting large monitors?

      You know this thing about overheads is misleading. When I'm sitting about in Windows it's not mindlessly gobbling CPU, actually I just task-managered and found Chrome was the one using 21% of my CPU out of 28%. The memory overhead is about 1.2Gb of RAM on a system with nothing really going on, I know that's not great, but you know what, it's not really a big deal either. RAM is relatively cheap. GPU performance? Well my bitcoin miner doesn't run faster under a baseline linux install than it does under Windows.

      Windows only has two significant overheads, Hard disk space and RAM usage, neither of which are a deal breaker for me.

      1. westlake
        Pint

        Re: Overhead Scmoverhead

        "Windows only has two significant overheads, Hard disk space and RAM usage, neither of which are a deal breaker for me."

        Windows 7 was released in 2009.

        In 2012 the geek has yet to work his head around the notion that hardware resources like RAM are meant to be used and not hoarded.

  2. JDX Gold badge

    41 US states, 27,000 units

    How on earth did they pull that one?

    1. Colin Millar
      Pirate

      The usual way

      1) Identify gullible education procurement director

      2) Send salesman

      3) Profit!!!

      The real question is how can they have only sold 27,000 units into 3 states in the US public education sector - presumably the other 38 that are "using" Chromebooks have not been convinced to open their wallets yet.

    2. Spearchucker Jones
      FAIL

      Surprised parents allow it.

      My kid is not going to a school that uses them. He's too young (so am I, actually) to understand the long-term impact of Google's data slurps. He deserves his chance at privacy, and there's no way in hell I'm turning my son into a marketable demographic.

  3. JDX Gold badge

    re:Gamers

    DirectX is a great development platform though.

    And developing 3D graphics for ChromeOS means either writing the thing in JavaScript with WebGL, or using Google's own proprietary NaCl technology... which puts everyone right back where they were but tied to a different company!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Look

    Chrome OS is simply a platform to use Google docs (and the google app store) with Microsoft not needing to be involved.

    It'll no doubt initially be hailed as fantastic and slowly spoiled by countless overbearing incursions into your privacy and be smeared with all the Google account and G+ crap that no one really wants.

    1. Craigness
      WTF?

      Don't want...don't use

      Have you ever tried not using something you don't want to use? From the number of comments like yours on this site I feel I must be special somehow, because I have no problem not using things I don't want. It's not restricted to the online world either - my dining table came with 6 chairs but only 5 have ever been used and I never felt the need to complain that I was given the other.

      1. Drew V.

        The difference with your dining room table, Craig, is that everyone here - it is safe to say - has used or otherwise encountered Google. Consequently, everyone is allowed to have an opinion about Google and its various, expanding activities.

        1. Craigness

          I encountered my dining table. That doesn't make it any more difficult not to use it.

          You are not forced to use any Google product, even the ones created whilst it expanded its activities after you signed up for a Google account; personally there are a lot which I don't use, but they are there all the same. I just ignore them.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My prediction

    ...until the Chromium OS project can decouple ChromeOS from *only* working with Google Authentication they will not see any significant inroads to business.

    To be honest, I am a bit curious how the schools are dealing with the ID/Authentication side of things... maybe generic logins(?) I don't think they've come out with a Guest/Incognito capability yet have they?

    Said it before and I'll say it again, there are aspects of this OS - some of which are being cribbed for Windows 8 - that deserve attention... but the dependency on Google authentication is a problem IMHO.

    1. Craigness

      Guest mode

      was added in 2010.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        TY : )

        Much appreciated!

  6. toadwarrior

    chromeOS is a joke

    I expect it to die. It's just not cheap enough for something so limited. Even android would have been a better choice.

  7. Ian Johnston Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Why on earth

    would I want a portable computer which was utterly dependent on a net connection? The one time I can't be sure of a net connection is when I'm on the move. Laptops which die every time the train goes into a tunnel - coo, there's an attractive proposition.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Maybe they picked the wrong form factor?

      As demonstrated by the article, the most popular (or at least *a* popular) use case seems to computer labs. Throw ChromeOS on a Shuttle XS35 and you have a somewhat capable kiosk machine that sips power and requires almost no management.

      Think of all the trouble we have to go through to make a stateless Windows Desktop... and if the thing is hard wired there is not the same concern about what happens if you go through a tunnel.

  8. sleepy

    “This is so important to us, we can’t rush it.”

    More like "This is going nowhere but we're too arrogant to admit it"

    It is so like the endless stream of "initiatives" that MS announced over the years (eg at CES).

  9. TeeCee Gold badge
    WTF?

    "The big problem here...."

    To me, it looks more like the fact that I can buy a "full fat" 15" laptop (with 64 bit Win 7) for about 100EUR less than the touted prices for a Chromebook. The difference becomes outrageous if I want the 3G one to allow it to be used on the move (it's a laptop - sort of a "must have" requirement really).

    So the one that I can use anywhere costs less than the one crippled by requiring an "always on" connection. Ok, my cheap laptop may not be the latest spec, but when the alternative's performance is governed by connection speed, any extra horsepower there is purest pig lipstick.

    You'd have to be a real fanboi to reckon that "must have ChromeOS" is worth that much more than hardware + Windows or Linux distro of your choice, or both.....

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