Wednesday, May 11, 2011

A new kind of computer: Chromebook

Sundar
Linus
By Linus Upson, Vice President of Engineering, and Sundar Pichai, Senior Vice President, Chrome

Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog

Update 5/11 3:00 PM: Added video of keynote

A little less than two years ago we set out to make computers much better. Today, we’re announcing the first Chromebooks from our partners, Samsung and Acer. These are not typical notebooks. With a Chromebook you won’t wait minutes for your computer to boot and browser to start. You’ll be reading your email in seconds. Thanks to automatic updates the software on your Chromebook will get faster over time. Your apps, games, photos, music, movies and documents will be accessible wherever you are and you won't need to worry about losing your computer or forgetting to back up files. Chromebooks will last a day of use on a single charge, so you don’t need to carry a power cord everywhere. And with optional 3G, just like your phone, you’ll have the web when you need it. Chromebooks have many layers of security built in so there is no anti-virus software to buy and maintain. Even more importantly, you won't spend hours fighting your computer to set it up and keep it up to date.

At the core of each Chromebook is the Chrome web browser. The web has millions of applications and billions of users. Trying a new application or sharing it with friends is as easy as clicking a link. A world of information can be searched instantly and developers can embed and mash-up applications to create new products and services. The web is on just about every computing device made, from phones to TVs, and has the broadest reach of any platform. With HTML5 and other open standards, web applications will soon be able to do anything traditional applications can do, and more.

Chromebooks will be available online June 15 in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Spain. More countries will follow in the coming months. In the U.S., Chromebooks will be available from Amazon and Best Buy and internationally from leading retailers.

Even with dedicated IT departments, businesses and schools struggle with the same complex, costly and insecure computers as the rest of us. To address this, we’re also announcing Chromebooks for Business and Education. This service from Google includes Chromebooks and a cloud management console to remotely administer and manage users, devices, applications and policies. Also included is enterprise-level support, device warranties and replacements as well as regular hardware refreshes. Monthly subscriptions will start at $28/user for businesses and $20/user for schools.

There are over 160 million active users of Chrome today. Chromebooks bring you all of Chrome's speed, simplicity and security without the headaches of operating systems designed 20 to 30 years ago. We're very proud of what the Chrome team along with our partners have built, and with seamless updates, it will just keep getting better.

For more details please visit www.google.com/chromebook.



Watch the keynote here:




Linus Upson is Vice President of Engineering and Sundar Pichai is Senior Vice President, Chrome

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

13 comments:

  1. I love it ! Hope to buy it as soon as it arrives in the market.

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  2. Please consider that Canada is uniquely connected to the U.S., so being left out of most of the new products and services that you announce has more impact for us then it does for other countries.

    We understand that participating in the Canadian market can sometimes be difficult and frustrating, but many companies do manage it, and we appreciate it when they make that effort.

    The Chromebook sounds like a really amazing product - I hope us Canadians will also get the benefits of it soon.

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  3. Are we witnessing the end of desktop computing? Can you hear the walls breaking down... wow, this represents so much more than just a laptop, i wonder if the users will understand though, i'm not sure that they understand why yet.

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  4. I will get one as soon as possible when available in Switzerland. I am sooo sick of updating and booting my MS and Mac laptops

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  5. Sounds like a great product! I'm just wondering, for example, how are apps developed using Chromebook, i.e. is it possible to install Eclipse IDE on it, or something like that...

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  6. Awesomeness Confirmed!!!!!!! This is a great idea.

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  7. what about the private data.

    Is there any provision to make our data private, not to store at google server.

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  8. I think all data may end up at the Google Server Farms. More security and servers will be needed if the business and education community jumps on quickly. Google understands this, awesome security and more servers. My question is will this hurt I.T. Jobs (worldwide) or will everyone work for Google to handle the data loads. I hear the free meals for employees are good. Oh, I will be watching Samsung and Acers stock more closely. Go Google!!!!

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  9. Chrome Fever is on and no one can escape.

    Since it wont allow to install cracked application not sure how people are going to accept this OS.

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  10. It appears that everything have to run on the Chrome web browser. Is it possible to install application locally on a ChromeBook?

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