
Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride - kirtijthorat
http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/28/googles-chromebooks-have-hit-their-stride/
======
gkoberger
Bought Chromebooks (and Chromecasts) for all my tech-illiterate family members
in order to cut down on having to provide tech support, and it's been amazing.
No issues so far, and everything just works.

~~~
cshimmin
I do nearly all my work on remote machines, writing code in Vim over SSH.
Could chromeOS work for someone like me? Is there a decent terminal app for
chromeOS? I don't want a PuTTY-like utility that allows me to open sessions;
I'm looking for a tabbed terminal that allows me to run basic linux commands
locally and ssh into remote machines...

~~~
emidln
I use a system called Crouton[1] that installs a full Linux (Ubuntu or Debian
currently) in a chroot (so that it still uses the Chromebook's kernel and x11
config). It works extremely well for my development needs. I do Python,
JavaScript, Ruby, Python, and Clojure. The only real downside is that my
particular Chromebook, an Acer C7 with a new SSD and 16GB of RAM, is still
only a dual core Celeron. That makes some things awkward (starting the JVM for
leiningen when I do Clojure/ClojureScript takes more seconds (around 20) than
I'd like)). Using a jedi integration (Python code introspection, refactoring,
execution) for Vim is also really slow when first loading Python into a buffer
(the solution, never leave my vim, is acceptable to me). To be fair, neither
of these things were exactly instant even on my former i7-based Retina Macbook
Pro.

Long story short, I can alt+ctrl+shift+f2 and get to an Ubuntu install where I
have XFCE installed and access to a real xterm + tmux + Skype. It has all of
my dev tools (c compiler, python, jvm) and can even do Android development. I
can alt+ctrl+shift+f2 and go back to normal Chromebook stuff. I use Chrome
plus a special plugin in ChromeOS that lets ChromeOS and my Crouton/Ubuntu
install share a clipboard. Combined with Chrome's normal syncing, I sometimes
forget which environment I'm in when browsing the web.

If you can follow some instructions and want a cheap dev laptop that is no
fuss for the basics, I'd recommend a similar setup. These days, I'd probably
go for the 14" HP, although I haven't checked to make sure I could upgrade the
HDD and RAM to acceptable specs.

[1] -
[https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton](https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton)

------
salient
I used to support Chromebooks. Not anymore. Having every last bit of your data
"in the cloud" has turned out to be a very dangerous concept, especially since
Google (and many other cloud providers) don't provide any kind of easy client-
side encryption options before uploading the data to the "cloud".

~~~
irishmoss
I was under the impression that documents stored under /Downloads/ or
elsewhere in the file-system (when using dev-mode) are not uploaded to the
"cloud".

~~~
GioM
I can't tell if this is a poor attempt at a defense of the chromebook, or a
solid instance of damning by faint praise.

------
ladzoppelin
So basically Chrome OS is like Microsoft windows only with less features, less
control, less software, hardware dependent and developed by an advertising
company? Doesn't Chrome OS resemble an IPad challenger rather than a
Windows/MacBook substitute?

~~~
charleslmunger
It's like Windows except it's gratis, more secure, more control (check out
crouton [1]), and hardware that runs chromeOS is by definition linux friendly,
which encourages more hardware support [2].

On top of that, almost all of it is open source.

[1]
[https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton](https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton)
[2]
[https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/2205401/](https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/2205401/)
(for example)

~~~
chestnut-tree
_" It's like Windows except it's gratis, more secure, more control..."_

It's not really like Windows though is it? I could argue ChromeOS has far less
privacy and is less capable. Sure, ChromeOS presents a simplified and
streamlined experience that fits with what many people want in a computer:
surf the web, check email, write simple documents. But there is nothing in
ChromeOS that you can't do in Windows or Ubuntu or MacOSX. Importantly, in
those OSes, I can run desktop apps without worrying about usage data being
recorded and tracked (if usage data is recorded, it's opt-in and usually
described as "anonymous" data collection).

I wonder how many people here would be happy if every action they performed or
every app they launched on their computer was recorded by Apple or Microsoft?
Yet, this is exactly what ChromeOS potentially does. In ChromeOS, running
Google apps is only possible by signing into your Google account. So very
quickly, Google builds an incredibly detailed picture of your computer usage:
from the sites you browse, to the apps you use, to even the docs you print.
They are not capturing this data anonymously either. Knowing clearly what
Google tracks and records is a perfectly reasonable expectation. I'm amazed
how easily Google have escaped any scrutiny on this matter.

There's barely any mention in this thread (and none in the TechCrunch article)
of the privacy implications of using ChromeOS. I guess for many in the tech
press and the tech community it's a complete non-issue. As someone who cares
about privacy, I find that pretty depressing.

~~~
msabalau
If by less privacy you mean: Google has access to a bit more information to
make even more money by serving slightly more relevant ads, well, yes the
observable truth is that people do not share your concerns.

Very large numbers of people already use Google find stuff they want to know
and to manage their intimate e-mail communications. People have had a decade's
experience gauging how Google acts when it has this information. They continue
to use these services. Today, 81% of people who are buying smartphones in the
world are choosing Android.

The most straightforward explanation of these facts would seem to be your
concerns about Google knowing things are simply not shared. Not by the tech
community, not by the tech press, and not by the overwhelming majority of
people.

It doesn't seem likely that Google potentially knowing that one is using a
Chromebook to play Angry Birds or watch Netflix will be the straw that breaks
the camel's back.

------
julianpye
My girlfriend and I won a Google sponsored hackathon this year that got us
flights and tix to I/O and we both got the Pixel there. She then decided to
make an experiment and sold her Macbook, to proceed using only the Pixel and
an iPad. She wrote her entire dissertation with it and loves it. The three
things she misses are Illustrator, Photoshop and Lightroom. I doubt she would
have done the same thing with a lesser Chromebook, so it was the Pixel's
quality that won her over. She now is an embassador for it and recently a
friend of ours got one for his wife for Xmas instead of a W8 laptop.

~~~
judk
How is the Pixel better than a Mac running Chrome? The touchscreen?

~~~
julianpye
Touchscreen and the touchpad on the Pixel are simply state of the art - so
much better than on my Asus Zenbook, much more precise and simply a joy to
use. The speed-up time is very good, too, of course. It has to be said that
her Mac was quite old and she was intending to replace it soon, anyway.

~~~
judk
Ah, almost any new X is massively better than 4 year old Y. Exceptions are the
real dogs, like Windows Vista and eMachines.

------
vinkelhake
I got a Chromebook (XE500C21) as a gift and I didn't think it'd see much use.
I set up crouton on it and I'm using it for browsing, IRC and some (very
light) programming. I've come to use it far more than I thought I would.

My primary reasons for reaching for it rather than a "real" laptop (got a
couple of Thinkpads around as well) is that it's got great battery life and
that it's so cheap that I don't care if it gets wrecked. It's been beaten,
stepped on, splashed on.

It sits somewhere between a tablet and a normal laptop. It doesn't replace any
of them, but it's a great complement.

~~~
hexagonc
_It 's been beaten, stepped on, splashed on._ Stepped on by a baby? I'd be
surprised if it could survive being stepped on by an adult. Especially the
screen.

~~~
vinkelhake
Oh, it seems that I forgot to mention where the abuse was coming from! Yes,
two toddlers.

------
xgarland
While I don't have any interest in shifting to Chrome OS entirely, I do think
Google has made quite a leap in their recent Chromebook offerings.

I, for one, was one of the original pundits that lambasted the Chromebook
movement in the beginning, but I am starting to warm up to the idea of owning
one in the coming year. It surely will not replace my MBA, but there is room
for it to serve as a secondary machine to people like myself.

Lastly, Microsoft should feel threatened by the recent uptick in adoption,
because this kind of exodus towards ChromeOS will only eat more into their
once massive share of the OS market. If Google continues to make progress in
this space, $MSFT will most definitely have start paying attention and counter
their growth. The new CEO in Redmond has a lot cut out for him upon taking the
reins from Ballmer.

~~~
ocfx
I got one just for surfing the web in the living room for the most part, doing
a little bit of coding sometimes, and taking it to meetup groups. There is an
app called Caret which satisfies my editor needs. Anyways, I'm pretty
satisfied with it and it wasn't very expensive.

~~~
fpgeek
Exactly. Our Chromebook is a convenient living-room computer that my wife and
I (and guests) can easily share. It does 80% of what we need there, easily
more than enough to justify its purchase price.

------
pedalpete
Over the last few days, I was looking at building an IDE as a Chrome Packaged
App, but went with node-webkit due to the file I/O limitations of Chrome.
However, for many apps, the combination of ease of building a Chrome Packaged
App and the automatic cross-platform capabilities (anything that runs Chrome)
will further strengthen the Chromebook market.

The one thing I think is missing is more drool-worthy mid-priced machines.
There are some very nice Windows 8 devices in the sub-$1000, and it seems
Chromebooks jump from $400 right to the Pixel $1200+, which is a large gap in
the market.

~~~
skybrian
Could you say more about file I/O?

~~~
pedalpete
Sure, I wanted to allow the user to select a folder, and for the app to read
all the sub-folders and files. Unfortunately, from my experiments, I can open
a file, but opening a folder using webkitdirectory hides the path to the
folder, so I can't read the folder and it's sub-directories.

As I understand it, I could copy the files to the sandboxed filesystem API,
but there are a few issues with working in an IDE environment which would
break that usability, for example, grunt creating new files, etc. etc.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Happy to take this question to SA if that is a
better venue where people would more likely look for the answer as well, if
you've got a better solution.

As I said, I'm keen to do this as a Chrome Packaged App, though there are a
few things like Grunt that I'll want to be running within the app, so node-
webkit isn't a bad solution for the prototype.

------
rasengan0
Replying on a $249 ARM chromebook running
[https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton](https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton)

it runs Firefox, vim, BitTorrent Sync

A key chord and I'm back on ChromeOS

Updates on ChromeOS are clean and easy

Instant on just as fast as iPad ChromeOS: Flip the lid open and there you are
Linux: + sudo startxfce4

Your data is yours.

The Win7 updates to my old netbook which i don't even use anymore take like an
hour.

Windows can run TurboxTax; I'll give it that.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Windows can run TurboxTax

So can pretty much every mobile/desktop OS, including ChromeOS, now that Turbo
Tax has web-based "Turbo Tax Online" editions.

The "I need Windows to run X" factor is getting weaker over time.

~~~
judk
Unless your stupid bank is only compatible with TurboTax CD version :-(

~~~
jasomill
Or you want to work with the underlying forms rather than the "wizard" mode
(essential when seeking advice from sources other than TurboTax online help),
file/amend prior-year or late (after October 15) returns, file a business
return, or prepare multiple returns without paying multiple e-filing fees.

Like most other Web versions of existing desktop apps, TurboTax Online is
_not_ a complete replacement for the desktop version.

------
mythz
I've always predicted that the focus of ChromeOS is the future for mass market
end-user OS:

A hassle-free OS that works like an appliance that's easy enough for everyone
to use (since everyone already knows how to use a browser).

Turn it on and become instantly productive, automatically save to the cloud so
users no longer have to worry about Files/Directories/Backups/etc. Computer
dies? no problem, sign-in into a new ChromeOS and regain access to your entire
environment.

Whilst it's still not useful for power users/developers, I'm predicting it
will be the preferred managed OS for many corporate office users.

~~~
xgarland
Agreed.

The shift towards a more affordable machine that can meet the most basic
productivity needs will attract businesses, especially since we now live in
world with more mobile workforces.Bloated OS's are a thing of the past and no
longer needed as much now as they were 10, 15 years ago.

------
steveklabnik
I've been using a Chromebook Pixel full time for the past month or so. It's
been really great. I'm not even using crouton, just the stock ChromeOS.

~~~
msoad
In cases that you have to SSH into another machine for work, it works perfect.
That screen is just amazing!

------
brownbat
10% of sales... to _businesses_?

Wow, really thought that would be the last safe haven, due to MS Office
entrenchment.

I guess it's not clear what businesses, or how they use the machines, but...
if enterprises get comfy with Google Docs, we could be on the edge of a huge
destructive shift.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Nobody wants to hand out Windows laptops to everyone in their business. Maybe
a core of your company are Office power users, and maybe this is even half of
your company, but the other half are idiots. These are people in your
organization who need to be contacted via email, need to read documentation,
but simply cannot be trusted with an actual computer. To these people, you
give a Chromebook.

Having seen inside a company that hands out Chromebooks to everyone, even if
they already have a "real" computer, I think Microsoft is going to lose a lot
of ground to them. They are cheap enough to just throw them away when broken.
If a user is having problems, they can just drop their Chromebook in a drop
box and walk out with another one in 10 seconds flat. And again, they are
cheap enough to just have them on a shelf outside your IT office or tech
support desk.

~~~
tmzt
Google really needs to send 2 of these things to every paying Google Apps
customer with 50+ users.

They should also fix the VPN and support and, yes, add support for PPTP
connections.

------
jay_kyburz
Google Docs let me down when it mattered most.

I really wanted to go all in on Google Apps and have been using them
exclusively for the last year, but at the start of december I started
negotiating a large contract and I had a solicitor drawing up some documents
for me.

Both the solicitor and the large company I was negotiating with were sending
me .docx files and Google docs was failing to number the paragraph correctly.

This let to quite a bit of embarrassment and was forced to go out and buy
Office for mac. If I was using a Cromebook I would have to buy a whole other
laptop.

~~~
andybak
I'm conflicted here. Handling MS Office formats correctly is so essential to
so many people that Google Docs really needs to do better here.

On the other hand it's such a shitty format that getting it right is a
gargantuan task. LibreOffice doesn't get much credit here either and I'm not
aware of any other 3rd party clients that do much better (correct me if I'm
wrong).

~~~
yuhong
I wonder if MS was to rewrite their binary file format reader/writer in MS
Office (to for example be secure from the beginning) how long would it take
for them to get it correct.

------
ancarda
When Chrome OS was first announced, I wanted to try it out. Unfortunately
every time I try, I can't get it to run in VirtualBox. The hexxeh builds are
old (April 2013) and there's no ISO I can download. Has anyone else had
success in running a recent, stable build in VirtualBox?

~~~
wepple
Why not grab VMware?

I got the hexxeh build running fine on VMWare (Workstation, but it should work
fine in Player) a couple of days ago.

All I had to do was change ethernet config in the .vmx file as it wasn't
picking up the virtual adapter.

------
jmduke
I'd love a Chromebook equivalent of an iPad. All I do on my tablet at this
point is surf the web (okay, and a little Candy Crush/King of Dragon Pass),
and if Google could bring that level of build quality and polish to the tablet
space it'd be incredibly interesting.

~~~
sbierwagen
So, a Nexus tablet?

~~~
jmduke
I was thinking along the lines of something that ships with/is optimized for
Chrome OS.

~~~
Recoil42
Why does it matter if all you're doing is surfing the web? What doesn't
Android provide as an analogue? Why is Chrome OS important to you in this
instance?

Not trying to contradict you -- just trying to understand your position.

~~~
fpgeek
Chrome OS is a desktop-style browser, not a mobile one. That means desktop
versions of sites work best, multiple window support, full Flash and a few
other things. Over time these differences will fade (e.g. post-Pixel touch
support has become comparable), especially as Android gets Chrome packaged app
support, but in the meantime...

------
notreadbyhumans
I was in Starbucks the other day and a couple of late-middle age Librarians
were sat at an adjacent table (I couldn't tell if they were from the local
library, or the local university), both with the 11 inch Samsung Chromebook
(2012). These were clearly issued by their employer (and quite recently by the
sounds of it), although one had been decked out with a bright pink rubberised
skin.

After a few minutes of negotiation they were both connected to the free wi-fi
and proceeded with a meeting where they collaboratively edited a set of Google
Docs and Spreadsheets, whilst sat on opposite sides of same the table (the
docs were the focus of their meeting).

There are many use-cases for Chromebooks (I also have the same Samsung which I
use for testing), but one is certainly employers managing large portfolios of
standardised desktops used by 'information workers', and which are primarily
used for editing spreadsheets and text documents, and surfing the web & using
web apps (one might argue that these are largely indistinguishable from
students, which is a another sector that Google has targeted).

It may have been that they would have been using Google Drive on their old
(presumably) Windows machines, but I suspect that what was likely an economic
decision for their employer (the Samsungs are £200 in the UK when bought
through Amazon, likely much cheaper when bought in bulk), is also driving
uptake of Drive (and web apps in general).

What was interesting from my point of view - as a developer - was that here
were two reasonably tech-savvy 'civilians' using what is a relatively limited
(by design) technology, and doing so in a very natural and fluid way. There
was no mention of either the hardware or the OS and its limitations, they just
went about their business without any hiccups or stumbles over the tools they
were using.

People who question the Chromebook programme - they're just a browser, you can
already do the same on any desktop, etc - are all making very valid points.
But in many situations the question isn't what magical things can we make this
device do, but rather what is the least (both in terms of cost, but also the
scope of things that can go wrong) we can provide and still have our people
function effectively. Google appear to be taking a bottom up approach to
answering this question: slowly adding functionality to ChromeOS until it
meets the majority of use cases the majority of the time. The grey area
between Chrome the OS and Chrome the Browser is by design: If you find that
you are increasingly living in Chrome on the desktop, maybe your next machine
will be a Chromebook.

------
Brakenshire
How are Chromebooks for use with other Linux distributions? Would be nice to
have hardware which was made for use with the Linux kernel (and therefore,
presumably, guaranteed to have near-perfect hardware support).

~~~
cbhl
It's hit-and-miss, as with any other Linux-based mass-market device.

For example, the ARM-based Samsung Chromebook used a Mali graphics chip that
only had a binary blob graphics driver (maybe an Android one?) that had a ugly
nonfree license on it.

IIRC, custom code for each device can be found in the main chromium tree
somewhere; extracting those bits and using them with a standard Linux distro
is painful at best; e.g. locking you to specific kernel revisions for binary
driver compatibility. It reminds me of the win/softmodem shenigans we saw in
the late 90s.

Virtually every Chromebook has a hardware or software developer mode that lets
you boot an unsigned operating system. Developer mode is rather intrusive (sad
face; full screen message; beeps if you don't dismiss it early enough so that
you can't do it to install malware on a lay user's laptop without them
noticing) but usually can be quickly dismissed with Ctrl-D on each boot-up.

There exists some very nice hardware that is built from standard components
and/or will run well on standard drivers. As a starting point, prefer
x86_64-based Chromebooks over ARM based ones if you're going to run a Linux
distro on them.

------
hkmurakami
it's honestly impossible to decipher the validity of the claims without seeing
the sales breakdown of chrome books. how many of them were given away for free
but counted as sales?

~~~
eliben
Why would Amazon give away laptops for free? You can verify the claim in the
link by just going to Amazon and looking at the best sellers in the laptop
category.

------
mavhc
As long as you're fine abandoning the past a Chromebook is a good idea.
However the concept of online documents to a normal person used to desktop
software can be tricky, "how do I save?", "how do I attach this document to an
email?". Then there's concepts like authorising a web app to use your Google
Drive to save files in, and exporting PDFs to give to people. And things like
mpeg2 files don't play, so your own video camera won't work.

Main advantage is it never goes wrong or needs maintenance, no apps to update,
even automatically. Don't need to learn about AV, etc.

~~~
gizmo
Chroombooks support thumb drives / memory sticks. So people can stick to their
old habit of drag&dropping files from their thumb stick to an email to add an
attachment.

~~~
saraid216
Wait wait wait.

You're telling me that, to attach a file to an email, I attach a thumb drive
to the computer? That's kinda awesome.

------
faceponder
I've been looking into buying a Chromebook for some backpacking I'll be doing
in Southeast Asia this summer. The portability and battery life are a big
plus, and I like that the devices are cheap enough that I wouldn't have to
worry about it getting damaged. However, I've also been considering getting an
iPad mini instead.

Anyone with experience traveling with these devices care to share some input?
Specifically, would a Chromebook still be useful (and worth the weight) if I
might only have WiFi a couple times per week?

~~~
rasengan0
That is another big plus for the Chromebook. They steal it and you're out
$249, though in dev mode you're unsecured.

But...

My Samsung charger is a brick. Not sure about Asus. Battery life on ARM is 4-5
hrs, Intel better at 5-7hrs, but still no match against the tablets.

For portability, you may be better off with a smaller tablet: Nexus 7 or iPad
mini plus keyboard.

I would give the edge to Android for easy access to the filesystem unless you
jailbreak iOS.

My Nexus 7 also runs vim with plugins:
[https://github.com/momodalo/vimtouch_fullruntime](https://github.com/momodalo/vimtouch_fullruntime),
Firefox and BitTorrent Sync same as the chromebook.

Running vim on a Nexus 7 is a dream; the only hassle is pairing the bluetooth
keyboard (another thing to carry with AAA batteries) and a OTG cable dongle if
you transfer files to usb flash.

It sends/receives files with NFC, bluetooth, BTSync and USB flash drives via
Nexus Media Importer
[http://nexususb.blogspot.com/2012/08/welcome.html](http://nexususb.blogspot.com/2012/08/welcome.html)

My iPad can't do that.

It all depends what you want to do with the device.

One thing i like about tablets though is they are quick data capture devices:
secondary camera, Swype like virtual keyboard faster that typing and
paint/sketching.

Imagine trying to swivel a Chromebook's stanky front facing VGA cam to take a
picture if your camera lost power.

If you're travelling that may be a consideration.

~~~
faceponder
Thanks for the thoughtful response! You bring up some good points - I hadn't
considered the weight of the charger.

------
kirtijthorat
Another good read is the Forbes latest article "Here's Why Microsoft Is
Worried About Google Chromebooks" at:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2013/12/29/heres-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2013/12/29/heres-
why-microsoft-is-worried-about-google-chromebooks/)

Also, another important thing to note that many Chromebook apps now work just
fine off-line, so Chromebooks are increasingly less dependent on an Internet
connection.

------
mentos
I'd be interested in seeing if anyone has had success in getting OSX to run on
a Chromebook. So far googling for "Chromebook hackintosh" doesn't look
promising.

The same way Apple has come out with its 'C' line of iPhones which I assume
are cheaper, I see an enormous opportunity to do the same with their Macs.

Imagine a $250 Macbook.

~~~
kovalkos
>Imagine a $250 Macbook.

The only good part about Macs is the hardware. I would much rather run a
normal linux distro instead.

Putting OS X on $200 Chromebook is like buying a barn and thinking you will
get 1000-acre piece of land with it.

~~~
prodigal_erik
The only good part about Macs is the UI. There used to be Mac clones made with
commodity hardware, but they sold so well they threatened Apple's ridiculously
inefficient margins.

Apple's supply chain isn't as bad now, but if all you want is a browser
there's no reason to get it from them.

------
zacinbusiness
Chromebooks are very intriguing to me. Currently I use a MacBook Air and iPad
Air for computing (C#, Java, ObjC programming, Photoshop, and basic office
stuff such as word and Excel). I primarily run Win7 due to the VPN client my
company uses only working with Windows. But if that changes. I may look
elsewhere.

------
wil421
I appreciate what Google is doing for software compared to other companies but
most people I know are buying a chrome book because its cheap. I feel that an
Internet only connected computer isn't the way to go. Chrome only sucks. I
want a real OS.

------
plg
Is there still a chromebook with 3G or even LTE access built in? With a
(worldwide) google data plan? I would buy one in a heartbeat if that were the
case.

~~~
kirtijthorat
Yes, there is. I have a Samsung Chromebook with 3G from Verizon built-in. I am
very impressed with this laptop and battery life. The next model will have the
LTE capability.

~~~
edwardy20
What is the pricing on the data plan?

------
grandeb
I find the numbers hard to believe and looks like PR more than anything else.
Am on my phone right now, so can't check the numbers. What's the catch?

~~~
happyasian
Sad to see you modded down for just asking a question, but you're right.

>according to the latest numbers from NPD, Chromebooks accounted for 21
percent of all laptop sales and almost 10 percent of all computer sales to
businesses in 2013.

It's only "preconfigured" laptops, which probably excludes many sales because
a lot of people go to the OEM sites, say Lenovo and configure a laptop there.
Also, it's US only and probably counts the Chromebooks that Google is
discounting a lot, for example $99 for some schools.

Also, other big news is that Mac sales(not sure if absolute or as a
percentage) seem to be dropping.

~~~
tanzam75
In particular, large enterprises buy a lot of computers CTO (custom to order).
CTO is not preconfigured.

Also note that this NPD report is for the _commercial channel_ only. If a
school bought Chromebooks for every student, then that gets counted. If a
business decided to use Google Apps for corporate groupware, and bought
Chromebooks as a bundle, that's also counted.

But all the discussion above about how great Chromebooks are for girlfriends
and grandmas? That's not what this NPD report is about.

NPD tabulates retail sales separately from commercial sales. The latest public
figures from NPD give a 3.3% share for Chromebooks in the retail channel
during back-to-school season (July, August, and the first week of September).

> _Also, other big news is that Mac sales(not sure if absolute or as a
> percentage) seem to be dropping._

I would say that the 8.5% increase in Windows _desktop_ sales is bigger news.
Especially since it contradicts the dominant narrative of the impending death
of Windows.

As for declines in Mac sales, Macs are practically nonexistent in the business
world, except for its majority share in the media industry. Remember the
backlash over Final Cut Pro and the delays to the Mac Pro? That would not have
been good for Mac sales to the media industry. But now the Mac Pro is out, so
Mac numbers should go back up next year.

