{"id":984,"date":"2011-05-12T21:20:38","date_gmt":"2011-05-12T21:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/?p=984"},"modified":"2011-05-12T21:27:07","modified_gmt":"2011-05-12T21:27:07","slug":"chrome-laptops-for-28-a-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/2011\/05\/12\/chrome-laptops-for-28-a-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Chrome Laptops for $28 a month?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/google-chrome-toon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"google-chrome-toon\" src=\"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/google-chrome-toon_thumb.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"google-chrome-toon\" width=\"367\" height=\"275\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Google has been holding it\u2019s <a title=\"Google I\/O 2011\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/events\/io\/2011\/index-live.html\" target=\"_blank\">I\/O conference<\/a> this week and has been announcing all sorts of <a title=\"Engadget Coverage\" href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2011\/05\/12\/google-i-o-2011-recap-chromebooks-music-beta-movies-and-more\/\" target=\"_blank\">wonderful things<\/a>.\u00a0 One of the more interesting is a plan to sell it\u2019s Chrome OS based laptops to businesses and educational establishments on a monthly subscription basis.<\/p>\n<p>Four different laptops from Samsung and Acer will be available for between $28-33 for business and $20-23 for education.\u00a0 This will include the laptop itself, warranty, support and updates for the 3 year term of the contract.\u00a0 Organisations will have access to a management console in which the devices can be configured and managed.<\/p>\n<p>So do the maths add up?\u00a0 The devices are available outside of a subscription for between $350 and $499, the subscription will cost the organisation over a $1000 over the 36 month term.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s quite a premium, and it\u2019s not really clear how much value the support and management capability will add.\u00a0\u00a0 Most, if not all, organisations would spent more than the $500 mark-up supporting a normal computer over three years, so in that sense it makes sense.\u00a0 However I thought one of the main selling points of Chrome OS, and the Chrome Laptop, was that they weren\u2019t a full OS, so wouldn\u2019t need the sort of support, management and patching that traditional computers all need.\u00a0 If these devices are meant to deliver on that promise then why wouldn\u2019t a business just finance the capital cost cheaply elsewhere and simply buy the devices outright?\u00a0 They\u2019d still have the manufactures warranty, and the beauty of Google&#8217;s services is that the end-point is disposable as it hosts no data.<\/p>\n<p>I suspect there are details yet to come as I think there has to be more value there that we\u2019re not seeing \u2013 or I\u2019ve just missed something! :)\u00a0 Either way it\u2019s a highly disruptive move and something that could well change the shape of how IT is provided into businesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google are to offer Chrome OS based laptops on a subscription basis for businesses and education.  But does it add up?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[478,477,479,35,21,242],"class_list":["post-984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","tag-chrome-laptop","tag-chrome-os","tag-chromebook","tag-enterprise","tag-google","tag-google-apps","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":986,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions\/986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}