Google sets sights on enterprise, education with subscription 'Chromebooks' - Page 7

This has nothing to do with a ChromeBook. If you are using a MacPro or an iPad, when you are accessing the Internet for your work and the network goes down your productivity is going to be affected.

Network connectivity failures are extremely rare though, outside of mobile computing. I can count on one hand the number of times I have lost Internet connections in the last decade, and even then it was for no more than a minute or two.

Yeah, it is. They are both a Linux kernel with a UI and apps built atop WebKit. The arguments have been that its impossible to have a decent OS when your only app is a web browser.

Nothing regular about being an engineer. Not that many of you around and you create superlarge and complex files. We are talking office drones here - bringing up your special case does nothing to invalidate Chrome for its intended purposes.

Emailing large files around is why the cloud was invented. Most of my work with clients is to move them off email addiction which is the lowest and least useful form of collaboration. If that remains your use case then the emailing element is no harder in Chrome email client than exchange/outlook. Your issue is in creating the multi-MB files which I agree, Chrome and its apps are likely not well suited to do. BUT YOUR CASE IS A MINORITY. Most MS Office files are small. MS themselves is trying to get you to do exactly the same via BPOS/Virtual Desktop/Azure cloud but with the deadweight of Windows holding it down. My Windows XP on a decent dual-core Lenovo T-series laptop takes 15 minutes before I can work. 15 minutes (used to be 22 before i got a local geek to hack the registry and remove some of the Corporate IT bloat/security overhead). Win 7 for my colleagues with the new T412s is no better (and has plenty of other bugs just in the bloatware). Chrome is much lighter weight and for the vast majority of office tasks will do as good or better job on cheaper hardware with less required support.

Windows support costs are massive for large companies. Licensing costs are multi-million dollars and involve annual maintenance fees of about 20% per year of the initial license. Upgrades are expensive, MS are constantly trying to upsell you crap you don't need or is inferior to best in class solutions. And that is before you've paid for your own IT support minions to tell you to "switch it off and on again". Chrome OS could very well incur a fraction of the cost of corporate IT spend per user per year when you count HW/SW/Support TCO. When hardware breaks, bring out new $100 box, plug in monitor/KB. No imaging the HD, no data recovery, no delay. It's almost the hot swappable desktop. That is the vision at least (and it's the one that MS will try to sell you for $Ms)

Windows move to a cloud-centric OS is confusing, slow, and weak - why not cut out the pain for the standard office jobs and go Chrome? I am not so much pushing for Chrome as against the status quo which is generally pretty crappy despite the fact that we have all become used to it. Let's not confuse familiarity for quality.

Sol...

This is getting tedious.

With all due respect, you keep changing the the discussion.

Simple question:

Where is the current version of the file you are working on:

1) In the cloud
2) on your ChromeBook
3) on an external USB Drive

Pick one!


That's what you have to be connected to to get your work done.


You can't just say, that if that's not available I can switch to one of the other 2 choices -- by definition they don't have the current version of the file.

Also, you seem to conveniently ignore the fact that the file in the cloud could easily exceed the capacity of any local storage on or attached to your Chromebook.

Today's LANs have more robust computers with larger internal HDDs and/or local networked storage. So they can operate when the global network is not available.


Like it or not, except for a few special cases, you have to be tethered to the cloud for the ChromeBook to be of value.

Dick, where is the current version of the file you are working on:

1) In the cloud
2) on your iMac
3) on an external USB Drive

Pick one!

Same damn thing. Files can be stored in multiple places for multiple reasons. That’s how modern computers function.

Like it or not, you’re still ignoring that Chrome OS doesn’t have to be tethered to anything to work.

You’re inventing a problem that doesn’t exist. If it exists then tell me how one can still play video, read emails, listen to music, and edit documents on a Palm Pre when Airplane Mode is enabled.

Where did you come up with $200? At $28 per month, the crapbook is $1,008 over 3 years. That's far more than a much faster and much more capable Windows laptop. See the examples I gave above. Heck, for some of them, you could buy a new one every year and throw the old one in the trash for $1,0008.


I'm still waiting for an explanation.

The crapbook costs more than a much more powerful and much more capable Windows laptop. So why should you buy the crapbook when:
- it's more expensive
- it's of no use when you're not connected to the Internet (although Google promises that some day you'll be able to use it when not connected)
- it places all of your data on Google's servers where even Google admits that they're going to mine it
- it requires you to retrain your personnel and spend time and money coming up with an entirely new workflow

So what rational reason is there to do that?

Oh, yeah. It boots faster.

He's ignoring it because you're lying.

Today, Chrome OS and Google Apps require you to be connected to the Internet to accomplish anything.

Google has promised that, at some unspecified time in the future, they will offer the capability to do your work without being connected to the Internet, but until they accomplish that, your statement is a flat out lie. I've already pointed that out to you once - why do you keep lying?

Damn... the network's down again... Let's take a break!

1) He referenced the desktop model, not the chromebooks. Pay attention!

2) You conveniently are comparing a Windows laptop that you pay in full to a subscription based device that comes with 3 years of full service and support. Why dont you actually look into what a $500 Windows laptop costs a company over three years when they are paying for it month from a 3rd-party service. Hint: Its considerably more per month and that doesnt include OS updates, firmware updates, anti-virus updates, or power usage costs.

It is $28 a month for 2 years at which time they replace the hardware for free. It is much less expensive than a Windows machine and it is continually upgraded, you always have the most current version of the applications, there is zero cost for maintenance or support, it is an adequate machine for a large percentage users and it is faster, more protected and easy to use. Sounds like it might get a few people interested in trying it. In a corporate or academic environment they don't just go out and order thousands of machines sight unseen. They do a small sample test to see if it is going to meet their needs or not and if so they gradually roll it out. Why would any institution just take your word as gospel and dismiss the whole idea as bunk? Answer: They won't.

Opening most MS Office files over the network is trivial. Many companies force you to do that today by making you save your files to local file servers. Really large complex files are likely not in the Chrome sweetspot but that is a minority of cases.

Why would you conflate the relative strength of a specific piece of hardware as ANY FORM OF INVALIDATION OF THE PLATFORM? There will be bigger laptops, little ATV style desktops, plug in a monitor, and extra HD (tho why? for the Office/Education uses outlined for this thing).

Again - nitpicking at the costs of storage for a consumer vs. the overall Chrome story which is primarily Business/Education is irrelevant. A College, School Board, Enterprise will negotiate very sweet cloud pricing (like they do with every hosting vendor today) almost certainly at lower cost than they can possibly deliver it through their own IT staff. That's why there is so much outsourcing to hosting providers today.

HP/Compaq has changed games in the past. HP with personal printing, Compaq with IBM clones, etc. Google has changed only 2 - search and online advertising. The idea isn't who will change the game, but who will be good at executing. Google seems to be inventing this new game but HP is well placed to succeed in it as well. Just like Apple invented the new smartphone game but Google is also succeeding in it.

Its amazing that you post such BS despite the truth constantly beating you in the face.

Look at that! Accessed Chrome OS without being connected to any network. Its almost like magic or that there is local storage and file access that makes it useful offline like a regular computer. How fucking amazing!


edit: Right from Googles own page:

Every Chromebook runs millions of web apps, from games to spreadsheets to photo editors. Thanks to the power of HTML5, many apps keep working even in those rare moments when you're not connected. Cant wait to see how you spin that into Google is lying.

Cool your jets psycho! Your arguments are a mess of business issues for a consumer users (consumers don't rent Chrome, they buy a machine) and consumer issues for business users (TCO for a business laptop is about $4-5000 over 3 years).

The crapbook (as you call it) is NOT more expensive than the equivalent Windows machine for an enterprise. Do you have no idea what the Enterprise Total Cost of Ownership for a Business PC is? MS estimated at Win 7 launch that it would save $90 per PC per year in support cost which they estimate as 10% savings. That implies $800-900 per year per PC just in local support costs. Add servers and backup farms no longer needed since you are renting Google's cloud, hundreds of $ of MS licenses and fees per PC per year and the "crapbook" or "craptop" (for the little desktop version) is WAAAAAY cheaper over 3 years - even adding $50 per user per year for GDocs and something for 20GB of cloud per user.

Economics are NOT EVEN CLOSE for A BUSINESS or Institution.
Stop pretending that the Chrome rental concept as expressed here so far is for individuals. If you want one, you buy the machine for netbook $s ($349-429) and pay next to nothing to Google since you get cloud and Docs basically for free or pennies as an individual. I expect the desktop to be $200 based on the Atom/ION net-tops already available.

As for your other crap...
1) Docs and Mail is already offline capable, calendar will be eventually, many other web-apps will have offline modes (like several do today) and for the Business use case - THE NETWORK IS ALWAYS ON!!!
2) Google does not mine corporate data. If you use GDocs already - millions do, then you're being mined - not feeling the pain so far - except the existential crisis of FUD from people like you.
3) People adapt to superior workflow all the time. I do that for a living. Facebook was a fundamental shift in workflow in managing personal relationships as is all social media - people adjusted pretty well because it was better. Creating your files in the cloud, never having to save, backup. email (if public folder type things are done right) is better than create locally, save in some arcane structure only you understand, find it, email it, back it up, etc. etc.

DIck,

Because I fear you might fall victim to the FUD jargosta is spreading do this simple test.

1) Run Chrome. The browser, not the OS.

2) Go to the Chrome Web Store.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/ 3) Install and load Angry Birds. Should be premiered on the front page

4) Turn off your access to the internet.

5) Play Angry Birds.

Let's see. That's $672. I showed you a wide range of full laptops (far more powerful than your crapbook) that are under $400. You could replace them every 2 years, as well.


The support argument doesn't fly. No company in its right mind is going to suddenly fire all their IT people and rely on Google to support the company.


Faster? Other than boot time, just how in the world do you expect that something relying on data transfer over the Internet and an Atom processor to be faster than a full-blown laptop at anything but the most trivial tasks?

Adequate for a large percentage of users? That's your opinion. But considering the security issues, it's not likely. So where are all the big companies that have committed to using it?


What a ridiculous argument. I never said they should simply take my word for it. I've given a lot of reasons why the crapbook is a lousy idea - and you haven't refuted a single one.


Let's see. Google says that it requires the Internet access and you disagree. Who should we believe?

BTW, there's absolutely no way to know from that picture what you're claiming. You cold have loaded that screen and THEN disconnected the network adapter.

Sorry, I'll believe Google's public statements before someone who sounds a lot like a paid Google shill.


The difference, of course, is that I understand technology while you apparently don't.

Obviously, if you have a web app fully loaded on your system, that will continue to work if disconnected. But you won't be able to save anything to the cloud, won't be able to switch to anything new, and so on.

I gave you Google's own statement that it's not possible yet.


6. Explain to people like solipsism who apparently don't understand computers very well that there's a difference between an OS and a browser.

7. Try to understand why solipsism's best example of how an Enterprise IT department would work is Angry Birds.


Funny, but when the issue was whether MacBooks were too expensive, people like you were denying numbers like that. Now that it's convenient, you are suddenly sure that the numbers are real.

You're using a bogus imaginary argument. IT costs for a company do not go to zero simply because they use a crapbook. They still need to develop custom apps. Still need to support user problems. Still need to train users. Still need to manage their servers. Still need to support the network infrastructure.

Claiming that IT support costs go to zero is absolute proof that you don't have ANY idea what you're talking about.


I see you're still ignoring the fact that I can buy a REAL laptop for much less than a crapbook. Oh, I get it - you want everyone to accept Google's inane proposition that no one will ever need an IT group again? Sorry, I'm not buying.


I never said that it was for individuals. In fact, all of my arguments were specifically directed at business use.

And I'm not interested in your expectations of price. You can't even get the facts right - why should I pay any attention to your delusions?


Not according to Google (see the quote above). Mail is only offline capable if you're running Outlook or something equivalent - and that won't work on a crapbook. Docs works the same way.


I see. So businesses are support to throw out their entire IT infrastructure and jump into using crapbooks simply because Google promises that some day they'll be useful? :roll eyes:

You Google shills must really think that users are stupid.


Google admitted that they DO mine data from Google Apps. See above.

So who do we believe - a published statement from Google or the whining of a Google shill?


Better in what way?

Security? No way
Reliability? Nope
Speed? Nope

There is no point in me continuing the discussion. You apparently have an agenda with your "crapbook" argument or you are suffering from extreme delusional paranoia disorder.

Because it's not worth $1000 dollars...you're comparing a snowflake & an avalanche & saying they are the same thing.

This is why you people are ridiculous idiots. $1000? the cheapest model so far is $349. One-third the stupid fucking claim you are making.

I guess for you, there probably is no point in continuing the discussion. You haven't refuted a single one of my arguments.

And it's clever how you continue with the ad hominem arguments - further demonstrating that you have nothing intelligent to say.


Excuse me? The Google shills have been ranting on and on about how $28 per month for 36 months is such a great deal and businesses are going to be all over it like flies.

Do the flipping math.

Compared to $3000 for a leased device that only needs a web browser on the LAN, then that is a steal for the enterprise. For the consumer $349 will get you full-sized notebook and oversized-multitouch trackpad. You know this but you keep fudging the facts for some odd hatred of Google.

I did that!

1) Angry Birds would not run even while connected to the Internet -- light blue SOD -- AB music playing.

2) After reconnecting to internet (Turn Airport back on) could do nothing with Chrome browser

3) had to quit then start Chrome to get back to Working Chrome

4) Chrome usurped my "default browser" setting without asking -- totally unacceptable

5) If you start Chrome browser without web connection -- you can't do anything -- "page not available"


I removed Chrome form the system!


Interestingly enough I can access Google Docs better with Safari (which was also open) and was able to restart Safari Google Docs with a simple Safari Page reload after the Airport connection was restored.


Sorry, totally unimpressed!

You couldnt get Chrome browser to work or figure out how to not make it your default browser even though it asks you launch it for the first time?

Of course youre not impressed and cant do anything when you are trying to install an app without a web connection. That is not what my instructions stated.

Youre obviously doing something wrong, but Im sure you dont want to hear that Im sure I dont want to delve into it any longer. This thread is close as far as Im concerned but the bet is still on.

I did exactly what you said -- in the exact order you stated.


Read what I posted -- I installed AB and tried to run it before turning Airport off.

It failed -- I did nothing between the install and run.


This was the first install on this Mac -- Chrome did not ask me if it could be the default browser -- it just did it!

Yes my call < 300,000 ChromeBooks (any variety) sold by Dec 31, 2011.

Yours -- 4-5 million.

I'll be closer...


Close only counts in Horseshoes, Handgrenades and Dancing!

The mean of 300k and 4M is 1.85M.

Dont forget encounters of the 3rd kind."

When you load a program it's loaded locally on your device. Periodically it will sync back to the cloud (your actual "hard copy") If the network goes down, the app will NOT crash if it's coded for offline usage. instead, you'll be able to continue working on it (though some advanced functions may be limited)

When connection is restored, the application will see that the local copy (on your computer) is more up to date than the hard copy, so it will save the changes.

I really don't get why this is such a unknown concept.

Except I just tried that -- and it doesn't work!

You describe how it is supposed to be -- but it doesn't deliver the goods.

Because you're using CHROME BROWSER NOT CHROMEOS. They are based off of the same basic code, but the Chrome Browser is STILL written with OSx in mind.

On top of that, I already told you that the Chrome browser on OSX wasn't as smooth as it is on Linux/Windows.

And it's not as smooth on ANY of those platforms like it would be if it was the OS itself.

That is true is many offices already. The local native applications we run are heavily dependent on the network.

Really the argument the network might go down is a bit like saying we shouldn't use computers at all because the power might go down. The network has become an essential service.

Is this what you expect it eventually will do, or what it actually does?

I was thinking Google would eventually merge parts of Android and ChromeOS.

For example the smart syncing framework for Google Music (where popular or selected items are cached locally and everything else is downloaded when needed) would work well with other files and fit in well with ChromeOS, and it would basically put Google in line with what Microsoft and I preume Apple will be doing over the next couple of years.

The next step would be to make the entire Google application suite (gmail, calendar, contacts, docs, photos etc) work offline.

It works just fine in the latest version of Chrome browser for Mac OS. That is what I used. I can do screenshots to prove it.

Ive been DLing and testing about a dozen apps from their store. Theyre all working great in the browser. Its taking browser extensions to a whole notha leva...

I dont see what parts of Android and Chrome can merge. Its not like OS X being used for Mac OS and iOS, and iOS for iPhone/Touch and iOS for iPad having so many familiar and interchangeable components. Android and Chrome are very different. Im not even sure how similar the Linux kernels with what Ive read about Chrome OS design for security and performance at the lowest levels.

The google application suite should be offline capable by the time the devices are commercially available. They said it would be this summer anyway.

Where have you run Chrome OS?

If you haven't actually run it -- you are just parroting the manufaturer's claim on how it will (may) work... Someday!

I run the browser on both linux and Windows. It works fine (including offline apps) on both of them. The mac I have is a few years old and It's really just a computer for my dad to use at this point, so I haven't tried it on there. since ChromeOS is everything the browser is, without the shit Windows ads, and the added code to make it an OS, I will have to assume that it works find for ChromeOS as well. I am still tracking down a version of ChromeOS that will work with VirtualBox.

@Sol I'm glad it's working better now. Last time I used it on a Mac it was a lot slower than on my PC.

The offline support is part of html5. It has nothing to do with ChromeOS and should work with Safari and on the iPad/iPhone.

Er...Dropbox?


I can do that with any enterprise that uses terminal servers...and anything that stores data in a file share. It's not a big elephant unless you presume a specific use case tailored for that capability.


Which you can easily do on Windows with a network and shared drives...


You have to document this. Define "a lot of schools". This is a recurring theme in your assertions which essentially states that MS Office is not important. That hasn't been my experience.

This was the price of the old 12" Lenovo IdeaPad...and I could run all PC apps with that.


Google Apps for business is $50/year per user vs $72 per year.


Well, it's a tad more secure and they need them for their other enterprise services anyway. Or are you making the claim that Google Apps replaces MS' entire enterprise product line?


Show me that this huge chunk has high speed access to Google servers and it might be more compelling an argument.

Good luck with that @ 30,000 ft...

And dropbox is great, and it's V1.0 of the cloud syncing concept (when it comes to modern devices). I should also mention that Dropbox is a Pain in the ass to work with on iOS compared to the other system's I've used, especially if you want it to do two way syncing (so something you're working on is synced back to the cloud, automatically, every time you're saving)

So you can pick up ANY device running your OS of choice, log into it and have access to all your information without configuring it?


Not the same thing. I won't bother explaining it because that's what we've been doing for multiple pages already.


I said a lot of schools already use Gapps, which is ALSO a custom version of the Gmail client (what most schools are typically using). I said since most schools already use this, it wouldn't be hard to create a document portal (start using Gdocs). Since they're not doing that right now, they're obviously using something else (often Blackboard). And MS office isn't important past the fact that it's a document service. You don't NEED MS office to submit paperwork, you just need a program that can save in .doc format.

As for a lot of schools. I know doing research is hard, especially when I've ALREADY linked to the schools in this thread already.

They don't give a specific number of schools (though it is in the thousands) that use it, but they do say that over 10 million students use Google Apps.
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html

Here is the link for google Apps for business as well: (which gives the number of over three million) http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html