21 Jun 2011
The announcement of Google Chromebook marks the end of the desktop refresh programme. Several industry trends – cloud computing, the need for mobility and the consumerisation of IT – have all created the need for a new operating system such as Chrome OS.
According to Gartner Research, the total cost for a desktop computer is between £2,000 and £3,500 per year, and laptops can cost even more. An organisation with 100 employees could spend between £200,000 and £350,000 per year on desktop PCs, whereas the Chromebook, at a cost of £17 per user per month (£210 per year), requires no capital expenditure on technical issues such as software upgrades, updates or patching. Hardware issues and upfront capital costs will also be a thing of the past due to mobile phone-like contracts, which include maintenance and hardware upgrades.
A cloud-based environment will mean IT managers can concentrate on using IT to bring innovation to the business and deliver a competitive business advantage. One hundred per cent availability from the cloud is the future for desktop computing, and CIOs can utilise the Chromebook and its online advantages to virtually eliminate desktop costs such as deployment, software updates and upgrades. Having an instant-on device that starts up in less than 10 seconds will also eliminate the frustrations associated with complex PCs with long boot times.
Google has also announced partnerships with Citrix and VMware, which address the last real concern of the enterprise – how to access legacy applications. During the industry transition to a 100 per cent web model, there will remain some critical on-premise or client-server applications, which must be supported, and the inclusion of Citrix Receiver (now available for the iPad) removes this hurdle and allows business users to be free of the constraints of a Windows PC.
The integration of Citrix is the icing on the cake for the Chromebook. Offering remote access into the corporate network for non web-based applications, thus making Chromebook more appealing to mid-size businesses, can only accelerate the adoption of web-based applications such as Google Apps for Business instead of Microsoft Office, Exchange and Sharepoint.
We expect true cloud-based desktops to be the norm within the next three years and medium-size businesses are likely to be the first to take advantage of this web-only environment.
David McLeman, managing director, Ancoris
Microsoft columnists keep pushing the offline issue.
In the real world at home or in a business you would have your own WiFi router, which would give 100% connectivity to the WiFi/LAN, meaning you can always work with local home media servers, local storage servers, local Citrix VM servers, local webmail servers (eg. Outlook Web Access), local web servers for information/data entry/crm/accounts/inventory /invoicing/purchase orders etc. On top of that the imminent Gmail and Google Docs offline capability will allow offline use in exactly the same way as Windows, Mac and Linux desktops or laptops in this local WiFi based environment.
Once offline capability is added to Google apps, you are better off with Chromebook than with a desktop PCs. When your desktop PC loses its broadband connection (very infrequent in most cases), you can't communicate, which effectively means that your business communications stop. With 3G Chromebooks, in the event of broadband failure, you have the free 100MB/month 3G connection as an emergency backup if you need to communicate plus the option of $9 per day passes if the outage is for more than a few hours and you really need to get your information out. With a desktop PC, your business stops until your broad band is restored in this respect.
A final point. There is a lot of FUD flying about regarding Internet connections going up and down like yo-yos. The reality is that in most locations, broadband going down is a rare occurrence, and it is possible in most locations to provide redundant Internet connectivity by using DSL+cable, DSL/Cable + dialup to make Internet connection loss even rarer.
The point is that if are attempting to run a business in a location where the broadband connection goes down as often as the FUDsters claim, you really should be thinking about moving your office to a location with reliable Internet connection - Internet connectivity today is like telephone, electricity or water. You can't run a modern business without it.
Posted by: PGN 25 Jun 2011
"Ron" misses the point: if you work in the real world, you need access to data continually. No connection, no productivity, unless you revert to carting around vast amounts of paper files. Locally, 3G is patchy, and that causes issues for community-based staff. Putting total reliance on a web-based device would be fool hardy to say the least: at least with a tablet or laptop, data can be 'briefcased' until it can be sent: with a chromebook, you won't even be able to type a document up without access to the web service.
Posted by: Steve Atkinson 24 Jun 2011
My cell phone doesn't make calls unless I have a connection, but I still use it all day long for business. Why do people have an obsessive need for offline? If you live on top of a volcano, where there is no service, you probably don't need a computer.
Just so you know, I have been working on a laptop, via Citrix XenDesktop for 3 years. I have zero local apps. Chrome Book is the ideal compute device for me. Brilliant product.
Posted by: Ron 21 Jun 2011
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