After failing on smartphones and tablets, Microsoft is hoping it can find redemption back on the desktop
The article is not wrong, but these statistics are a bit misleading. Number of windows machines around is huge and XP was around for almost twice as long as the OS's after it, of course it's gonna take a while to convert everyone to w8. Personally, I think MS screwed themselves for pumping out new OS's so fast, they're not Apple, they don't have that control over their hardware.
We'd be better off without them. They obscure free enterprise and scare consumers to maintain market share. 99% Sure they sabotage the hardware market as well as paying people to work on opensource . .. not to help but mislead.
I am using Google docs more every year. Yesterday I was on a hangout with three other people, collaboratively editing a doc in real-time via a Google Drive shared folder. Microsoft needs to be competing with that. They need an office suite with a killer UX that has video chat and cloud storage baked into the OS. Chromebooks are going to destroy Windows because MS isn't serious about solving the problems that people have. Windows 8 was not a solutions driven evolution. It was just about marketshare.
Destroy? I couldn't have used a chrome book in school, didn't have the software I needed, same thing for many businesses. Can't play most games on one. Have a few hours for video/photo editing, than chrome book is for you. I can use Google docs on a mac or a PC, same with Google drive. I don't know of anything I can do on a chrome book that I can't do on Mac or PC. A little Chromebook is a travel PC for when you don't need to do much but look at documents or be on the web. They have a nice little niche but they also have a long way to go before they displace the functionality of other operating systems. I could see owning one as a second travel computer but I'll probably stick with my tablet.
Well, not tomorrow. However, I believe the wheels will start coming off the Windows bus in a few years unless they start changing their strategy now. PCs are increasingly becoming service interfaces. Chromebooks are limited right now because they are uncompromisingly betting on that future. The question isn't what can your Chromebook do that your Mac or PC can't, but what can your Mac or PC do that your Chromebook can't. Every passing year, that list is going to grow shorter. Eventually, Chrome will kill Windows with convenience (and a cheaper enterprise licensing model).
Right now Chromebooks seem like little more than tablets with a keyboard. On one hand it would be nice to see more competition in the OS market, could breed innovation and lower prices. On the other hand the more fractured the OS market becomes the more compromises I'll have to make picking one device over the other or the more devices I'll want to own to get the best of all worlds. I really don't see any appeal in the Chromebook aside from it being a travel PC, maybe the future will prove me wrong. I'd bet on Linux as the free operating system of the future before ChromeOS but it's not a bet I'd really want to take. If an alternative free OS could intrench itself in China or India I think it would have a good chance to capture the future of computing.
Exactly. Until Google Drive(/Docs?) integrates all the features of MS Office or comparable high-end suites (which is a long way off), a Chromebook doesn't actually serve the needs of the average user. Sure, it works for a casual user that just wants to surf the Internet, but a lot of people can't do what they need to without a variety of third-party programs. I wouldn't consider myself a "computer junkie" or anything, but I could never use a Chromebook as anything other than a backup PC -- when I got this new computer, the first thing I did was install LibreOffice (which is between MSO and GD in terms of functionality), iTunes, Spotify, Skype, and a host of other programs that I use just often enough to warrant their installation. And the thing about Chromebooks is that because they do have a niche, and they occupy it very well, Google doesn't have all that much incentive to develop them into full-fledged computers. When people are buying enough to secure your profit margin, it's very hard to justify the sort of extensive development that would be required for a Chromebook to replace my PC.
LibreOffice and Skype are available for ChromOS I believe. I don't know about Spotify (I think it has a Chrome browser app) and am pretty sure that I tunes isn't compatible. I guess you could have a Linux distro in dual boot or even an MS dual boot. You can run a remote link to your powerful MS, Mac or Linux box back home and get some more functionality out of a chromebook but it sounds like a hassle. But there isn't much of anything that ChromeOS brings to the table that doesn't have a more robust set of applications for Mac or PC, it might have some stuff that isn't available in Linux but I'm sure that Linux wins out more than it losses.