So like, 28 * 12 = 336 ... do I get a new one every year? What happens if I lose it? What happens if it breaks? What happens if I cancel my service? I don't see this as a lucrative option unless Google really gives way on all of those questions.
A lot of your questions were addressed in the GoogleIO video. You can cancel at any time, not sure how they handle returning the hardware. If it breaks or needs updating, that is covered.
I don't believe they said that in the video and in fact Google told Danny Sullivan this...
"Google says there’s a three year subscription required. Hardware will be upgraded at the end of the three years, if people want to continue on the plans.
If hardware breaks, it’ll get replaced under warranty. But if you decide you want a shiny new Chromebook with perhaps better screens, trackpads or whatever midway through the program, there seems to be no provision for that."
I think a good comparison is to an iPad, where the top-of-the line model with 3g costs $829. So this isn't too much more expensive than that; the question is whether it's $180 better than an iPad 2.
That's not a valid comparison. The iPad with 3G does not include the cost of the data connection. This includes a 100MB/month connection with the cost of the subscription.
This could be a big hit in the education sector. The management of everything would be very simple since the hardware is a commodity, there no worries about viruses/spyware and everything is automatically saved in the cloud.
Again I don't mean to dump on Google who is at least trying to address the market. But they did so without asking what the market actually needs/wants or looking at what smart schools are currently using (and the related costs)
Your cost analysis doesn't take into account the time value of money. Being able to spread all those upfront purchases out over a monthly cost that includes IT support and the latest hardware at all times is definitely a valuable proposition. You are assuming a 4 year life on your netbooks. If one of them breaks, tough luck.
However, like you said, the usefulness of Chrome OS for students is definitely debatable. In a few years, a web-app only classroom might be more viable, but right now, it doesn't seem too practical. Plus, a tablet form factor seems more useful than laptops for classroom use.
I have to say I don't understand what you mean by "the time value of money".
For the record the 4 year is based on using that brand for some time. They actually can go about 4.5 years but after 4 years we consider them a loss. I can't imagine Chromebooks are going to be replaced more often than every few years.
On the Asus even if a few break (and it happens) the cost is spread over all the rest making it negligible (less than $.75 a month in my experience)
By time value of money, I meant that present value of money is greater than some theoretical future value. So although your laptop costs about $11/month spread out over 4 years, it's still a $558 investment upfront, at which point it's a sunk cost. On the other hand, you could just invest $20 and invest the remaining $538 in something else that might offer greater return. Depending on the kind of interest rates you're able to get, it might be better to just put the rest of the money in the bank and let it earn you interest. There's also less risk. If something better comes along next year, you can easily switch with little to no loss.
I am assuming that you are not using a payment plan to buy your netbooks, and are actually purchasing them all upfront.
I see your point now. And on the interest point I'd concede it but even if we got a monstrous return on that money I can't see it making much difference.
Though another issue is with the Google Chromebooks you have to sign up for a 3 year contract (though you obviously wouldn't have known that when you made your initial comment): http://searchengineland.com/google-chromebooks-out-june-15-3.... So on being able to change course that's not as possible as it seemed when you made your comment.
For apples to apples you need to compare the fully loaded costs. One less IT guy on staff because of the ease of management pays for a lot of extra laptops. Elementary education doesn't seem to be the target though, so you may not see all the cost savings (simply keeping email and calendars up for a large organization can be time consuming).
I don't think it require one less IT person? As I said the use of Faronics Deep Freeze restores the default configuration every reboot. So the support costs are next to nothing.
As far as Elementary Education vs. Higher Learning I would be surprised if this took hold in Universities. The only advantage I could see is cost for students and with studies showing 70% of College Freshman having Macs (http://osxdaily.com/2010/08/05/70-of-college-freshman-use-ma...) I don't see kids settling for a Chromebook.
"But they did so without asking what the market actually needs/wants or looking at what smart schools are currently using (and the related costs)"
That's not true. Just empirically not true. Additionally, you didn't include fully-loaded costs in your blog. Trivially: how many hours go into testing and deploying updates? What is your AV update subscription annual cost? Those are just the first two I noticed without really re-thinking the problem.
Relating to software costs, have you heard of techsoup.org? They'll sell you software for cheap if you're a non-profit. For one of my non-profit clients, they sold them copies of Norton for $4/each. (I assume Symantec got to write off an in-kind donation, so its a win-win).
Just wanted to mention it, on the off chance its helpful.
Given Google's track record on support for Google Apps, AdWords, the G1 phone, etc, I'll be looking to hear back from other people about the support experience with this offering.
I don't know, it seems to me that businesses and schools would have little use for these machines. I have a pilot CR48 and there's no way I could have used it as a primary machine at uni and I can't think of one employee in my company that doesn't rely on some non-web application.
For me, the CR48 has been an amazing couch and travel machine. It's lightweight, cool, instant-on and has a great battery. The 3G is awesome while on the road, just one click and I have internet everywhere. If I have to do a non-web task I connect to my home desktop with Teamviewer (works great).
