Posted on 05/16/2011 12:44:04 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) just explained the business case for Chromebooks in a press briefing at I/O, and it’s crystal clear that they’re not a consumer product.
Rather, Google is going after Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) heart — the corporate IT department.
The pitch: Chromebooks are so much cheaper and easier to manage than PCs, it will free up the IT department to do other more interesting (and profit-centered) things.
According to Gartner, the cost of managing each Windows PC in an organization is between $3,000 and $5,000 a year. That’s how much it takes for an IT person to do things like push Windows and Office patches out every month, install and maintain antivirus software, answer helpdesk calls, and so on.
Google isn’t claiming that Chromebooks will push these costs to zero, but Chrome OS business manager Rajen Sheth said that they could total cost of ownership in half.
The best example: today when a new employee starts, it can take several hours to image a new PC with all the right apps and get them set up on all the different accounts they need.
With a company that’s already set up to use Chromebooks, all a new user has to do is sign on and he’s up and running. All applications are delivered over the corporate network or the Web.
The IT manager from Jason’s Deli, a chain of 230 restaurants, said that they gave a bunch of sales managers Chromebooks as part of a pilot program. Last month, the company had 70 trouble tickets from regular laptops. It had zero from Chromebooks.
But what about Office? What about specialized corporate apps that only run on Windows?
Those are taken care of through a deal with virtualization company Citrix (NASDAQ:CTXS).
(Excerpt) Read more at wallstcheatsheet.com ...
It's a computer, not a smart phone or a tablet. And the Chrome OS is built on top of Linux, which has proven quite bulletproof to lawsuits by scammers and patent free-loaders, even those with secret backing from Redmond.
addendum to my last post::
The number of problem tickets will rise tremendously as soon as there is an outage at Google or at the users end.
How many Chromebooks, vs how many laptops? How old were those laptops, and how many of the calls were unrelated to the OS?
Hopefully, this article was not written to impress anyone who actually does performance benchmarking or diagnostics.
Excellent point! I'm in the process of setting up 4 or 5 new PCs for a non-profit where I volunteer. If I can figure out how to do it, I will be banning GOOGLE.COM from our machines for exactly this reason.
A couple months ago, we published some information on our website that was a tad sensitive, at least to the person to whom it referred. I immediately removed the data from our website, but, thanks to their "we want to own everything ever published on any website anywhere in the known universe" policy, I can still get the information using a Google search and their "cached" pages.
I am sure that there are at least 3 or 4 privacy laws being broken here, but it appears that the Google boys must have pictures of people in high places within the government. They are getting away with stuff that even Bill Gates or Larry Ellison can't do.
They omitted any trouble-reporting facility. It's done wonders for their reliability numbers!
‘Yeah, I cant wait to buy a Chromebook and have to turn ALL OF MY PERSONAL DATA over to Google for storage on their servers. We can trust Google, right?’
Hits the nail right on the head.
Assume an IT guy makes $60K. That would give a figure of 12-20 PC's a head. That sounds ridiculously low. I've worked in organizations that had 50-100 PC's and NO full time IT guy, let alone 3-5.
My executive summary for non-techies on the cloud: "The cloud is made of your competitor's farts"
Back in the day, cloud computing was called TSO.
Yup.
According to Gartner, the cost of managing each Windows PC in an organization is between $3,000 and $5,000 a year. That’s how much it takes for an IT person to do things like push Windows and Office patches out every month, install and maintain antivirus software, answer helpdesk calls, and so on.Assume an IT guy makes $60K. That would give a figure of 12-20 PC's a head. That sounds ridiculously low. I've worked in organizations that had 50-100 PC's and NO full time IT guy, let alone 3-5.
Since the $3K-$5K is "according to Gartner", take it with a large grain of salt. I've dealt with them before. Unless your company wants to hand over some major dollars you can't find out how they calculate the numbers.
I can take a guess for free. My first free guess involves scotch, a dartboard, and bribes.
Android is built on linux as well, and has been a magnet for lawsuits. According to this link, from 2011, 25 patents from Microsoft have been used in various suits:
And others are cashing in as well, like this company that was awarded $5 million from Google just a few weeks ago:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/21/google-ordered-to-pay-5-million-in-linux-patent-infringement-su/
I’m not saying that lawsuits are good, but since Linux is a clone by nature it should certainly expect more. And the new one from Oracle against Google is a doozy, let e know if you need a link to that one as well.
More examples proving that software and business method patents should be abolished wholesale. By diverting income to lawyers and tying up management with legal defense, they cost the economy much more than they contribute.
Well in this case they’re helping established US software businesses Apple, Oracle, and Microsoft defend their products from the foreign clone Linux, so they have my full support. Google, not much.
Google is much more useful to me than Microsoft or Oracle (posted from an Apple, but they're expendable, too, if better comes along!). Same goes for Linux (which Google deploys on their immense server infrastructure).
I don't care where my software comes from or how I get it as long as it's useful to me.
There's nobody says Americans have to buy from me because I'm an American, so it's my wish to deny rent-seeking rights to everybody else, too, regardless of fitness or lack thereof to compete in the global economy. LOL!
As Bastiat said, It makes no more sense to be protectionist because other countries have tariffs than it would to block up our harbors because other countries have rocky coasts
.
Thanks for being honest. I myself try to care about more in this would than just what’s good for #1, and value what I see as good for America as well. In that regard, cheap foreign knockoffs just aren’t my thing, and intellectual property laws that protect our technological lead and created content should be enforced. That won’t mean cheaper for me but will protect our way of life from pirates abroad.
But the fact remains that software patents, patent trolls, and their lawyers are a drag on productivity.
As for cheap foreign knockoffs, I'll use whatever works best. If I get tired of Google, I'll use Yandex instead (even if Kommittee gets to watch me search). Of course, Google knows that, so it won't happen.
Cloud: noun;singular - a dynamic arrangement of multiple potential single points of failure, with a user and one end and data at the other.
They've offloaded the most problematic applications to the Citrix servers. I suspect any problems with those applications will be attributed to the Citrix servers, rather than the desktop.
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