Google’s Chromebooks, which were once ridiculed as worthless laptops, are becoming an increasingly popular choice among the consumers. At this rate, these nifty notebooks may soon dominate whatever is left of the laptop market.
When Chromebooks were originally launched a few years back, only some vendors offered them and they came with very limited, online-only capabilities. Chrome OS, the operating system running atop these, was also regarded as an underdeveloped and ill-equipped piece of software.
Since then, the entire Chromebook platform has grown aggressively. It has been furnished with offline capabilities, thanks to many offline apps for the platform. Also, more vendors have warmed up to the concept and today, nearly all major PC manufacturers are offering at least one model of these machines.
The credit for this success certainly goes to Google. While the initial Chromebooks from the search giant were mocked by most analysts, Google stuck to the whole concept and eventually convinced sufficient hardware partners to join the party.
The sales figures of the global laptop market for the year 2013 reflect well on this change of fortunes. Chromebooks accounted for a whopping 21% of all laptop sales. Moreover, these machines grabbed 10% of all PC sales to the businesses. Even Amazon reported that during this holiday season, two out of the three best-selling laptops were Chromebooks.
Microsoft has the most to lose from this development, Windows PCs being the most popular computing choice around the globe. While Microsoft currently holds the majority share given the massive prevalence of the Windows platform, Chromebooks are chipping away at it.
This has been possible because not only has Google fully supported the Chromebooks, it has even helped create and market such high-end Chromebooks which are no longer incapacitated without an internet connection.
Source: NPD
Courtesy: TechCrunch
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