World’s biggest PC vendor [Lenovo] takes first step that could establish Android as Windows biggest rival ever — and eliminate Google ChromeOS at the same time
World’s biggest PC vendor [Lenovo] takes first step that could establish Android as Windows biggest rival ever — and eliminate Google ChromeOS at the same time
Lenovo will soon begin to distribute devices powered by the Esper Foundation OS
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I don't think that will plan pan out. ChromeOS is even getting gpu support and can run games via proton
It's also hard to overstate the advantage ChromeOS has that we can't even see yet. Chromebooks absolutely dominate the K12 educational world, and students are graduating every year and going into jobs where they're more familiar with ChromeOS than anything else. If enterprise customers switch in large scale to anything, it'll be to ChromeOS.
This is very true. ChromeOS will likely win out in the long term. But in the short term, it's good for Google to have competition to goad them into improving and innovating.
At the same time though, I'm not sure whether Lenovo's solution targets the same audience.
“The Esper solution is an android based software, it is specifically formulated for device management on an android OS running on an x86 platforms. This creates a unique opportunity for Lenovo to address this market. Specific market segments we are targeting include retail and hospitality, as well as the digital signage appliances for these industries. These segments include an abundance of Android based deployments that require a level of customization.”
I don't think ChromeOS allows really any customization of its UI, does it? I haven't used it in any significant capacity in a decade... (I wrote the original Chromebook Ninja call center scripts back when it was literally just a web browser on a laptop lol.)
Absolutely competition is a great thing.
And you're right, ChromeOS is pretty uncustomizable. I think they might have dark mode now.
I'd argue that ChromeOS only succeeds at funneling kids into Google's browser products, not keeping them in ChromeOS. Because you can get basically the same experience on any PC, whether it's running Windows, MacOS, or Linux.
Once kids grow up and get a job, they run into the limitations of ChromeOS pretty fast and swap to something with a real OS. Unless they're at a company that exclusively uses browser-based tools without any desktop apps or plugins, which is pretty rare IMO.
Unless they're at a company that exclusively uses browser-based tools
It doesn't necessarily need to be an entire company. It can easily just be a division or a department. Sure, you can't easily migrate engineering or design roles to a browser-based system; but Sales, Marketing (except design), Writing, Management, Strategic Planning, HR, Finance, Accounting, and Administration are just some departments that can be entirely or nearly entirely cloud-native (and in many cases already are).
I'd argue that ChromeOS only succeeds at funneling kids into Google's browser products, not keeping them in ChromeOS.
But when management discovers that they can reduce IT hardware costs by 50% or more by switching to a platform that their younger employees already know, they'll probably start doing it.
The world is heading back in the direction of thin clients, honestly. But in this new thin client world, the browser will be the only thing on the bare metal.
What you're proposing is definitely possible, but I don't see it happening any time soon. Partially because people just aren't interested in going there, and partly because Chromebook hardware tends to suck. Also, Chrome is bloated as hell on its own, you need at least 16GB of RAM to open up more than a handful of tabs 😆.
Plus, Chromebooks have ALREADY been around long enough for this to happen. The first Chromebook was sold in 2011! And in the 12 years since, Chromebooks have dominated the middle school market, of course. But they've managed to take approximately 0% of the market in the professional space. Even college kids don't use Chromebooks, it's all Macs and PCs.
At this moment, Chromebooks are for middle school kids, and also sometimes for casual home users. Not saying they can never be anything else, but that's the current reality.
Like any computer, Chromebook hardware sucks if you're buying entry level sub-$500 devices. The reputation for shitty hardware is generally from people who have only used entry level devices
Our standard fleet for our teachers is Acer Spin 513-2WH. They're exceptionally nice
Sure, but if you're spending a thousand dollars or more on hardware, you might as well get a Mac or PC that can run more apps. That's the reason people buy the shitty sub-$500 ones: because it ain't worth a thousand dollars if you can't run (insert industry-specific app here).
We're CLOSE to the future you envision, where everything is just a SaaS browser-based tool. But I don't think we're there yet, there are just too many exceptions for most businesses to go all-in on Chromebooks. I work for an MSP with a relatively diverse clientele (Mac and PC), and schools are the ONLY clients that use Chromebooks.
You're preaching to the choir, lol. I'm just saying the hardware on non-entry Chromebooks is outstanding these days. Everything else is a matter of time & licensing
The only problem with chromeos is its file manager that is not very user friendly. Any linux file manager ported to chromeos would be welcomed