Joe Brockmeier over at RWW asked an interesting question in his post yesterday, “Why hasn’t Google killed off Chromebooks?” They’ve been on a killing spree lately with labs, Wave and others. So why not kill off a set of devices that Brockmeier points out will have lower sales per year than Android does per day?
The answer is Enterprise IT. While Google hasn’t invested fortunes in attacking Enterprise IT, they also seem reluctant to let it pass them by. From the Google Search Appliances that they’re still producing to Google Docs to Chromebooks, they have put out interesting products, but most have yet to be taken seriously. A lot of startups have switched to Google Docs because the thought of spending $1500 on three MS Office licenses is unbearable, but most larger enterprises need a more robust solution. A Chromebook and a Google Docs account together potentially could do just that. For about $300 upfront, $5 per month for Google Docs and $40 per month for wireless I can equip my resources with a computer that boots in 7 seconds and gets to their office documents from anywhere. Why hasn’t this taken off? I’ll give you two reasons:
- There hasn’t been enough investment in Google Docs (particularly their version of PowerPoint). It’s clunky and it lacks the built in / easy to use / it always seems to look good feel of Powerpoint.
- People are scared ChromeOS and Google’s support of it won’t last forever… As we already pointed out Google is shuttering a bunch of their side projects, if I am a SMB considering Chromebooks that would definitely be a fear.
