Chrome will bring about the ICT revolution in schools

[SPM]

I have some of the same concerns, there is a big difference between locally hosted software that you have administrative control over and the system, storeage and software being totally controlled by the external provider. I always like to keep a plan B in reserve for if and when these providers decide to change what they offer or how they offer it.

 

It's not so much the homework that is a concern but if you put your admin services and email on it there is a much higher risk of personal information flowing over it. I also trust MS much more than Google when it comes to data, their gear gets attacked by haters every second of the day and there core business is not data mining. Google has its share of people after it too and this has resulted in various gmail users being detained in China, their initial cloud stuff leaked like a sive when they accidently turned on searching for several entire university domains.

 

All providers are going to have issues but I'd rather not end up on the wrong of the search algorythm.

 

I think that in the Chinese government hacking case, it wasn't Google's servers that were compromised. Rather it was individual user passwords that were intercepted by the Chinese government - probably by hacking a client device and using a key logger to obtain the passwords. Google to its credit pulled out of China to protect its users, while Microsoft did the opposite to try to take advantage of the vacuum created by Google pulling out by cosying up with the Chinese government.

[SYNACK]

I think that in the Chinese government hacking case, it wasn't Google's servers that were compromised. Rather it was individual user passwords that were intercepted by the Chinese government - probably by hacking a client device and using a key logger to obtain the passwords. Google to its credit pulled out of China to protect its users, while Microsoft did the opposite to try to take advantage of the vacuum created by Google pulling out by cosying up with the Chinese government.[/QUOTe]

 

To a certain extent yes, but they also compromised Windows devices inside Google's China offices, serves them right for running XP ten years too late. Again, to a certain extent they did pull out but they are still there, even if they redirect through Hong Kong and have lately removed any protest from playing by China's rules removing their warnings.

 

All of these companies are driven by profit and so that can be trusted... to do whatever makes them the most money in the long run. This includes breaking the law if the penalties are not steep enough to make it not worthwhile.

 

To be transparent we are looking at using 365 once it is upgraded to migrate a lot of our public calendars and SharePoint stuff for homework. Staff email and core documents are still staying local though in a coexistence role. The stuff that does not really matter will be clouded but stuff that really does will be staying where we can keep an eye of them and a stack of firewalls and intrusion detection gear in-between them and the internet.

 

Personally and professionally I still would not trust Google as far as I can throw them, unimportant data or not.

[localzuk]

I'm not going to go through that long post of nonsense that @stylemessiah posted, as it was nearly entirely pointless as it ignored a huge amount of info and focussed purely on perpetuating some idea that someone is a fanboy for using a piece of technology or not. Instead I'll focus on a few points.

 

Chrome offers a better experience on the Web. It has better standards compliance, better performance, better stability, better resource usage, a better UI etc... So there's your reason to use it.

 

The idea that security is either a proactive or reactive thing is nonsense - it is both. But eliminating products purely because you see numbers of security holes as being a massive problem is idiotic to say the least. What's that old saying 'lies, damn lies and statistics'. A lack of vulnerability reports for Internet Explorer does not mean they aren't there. As someone has mentioned, look at the vulnerability types too. Also, have a look at zero day exploits and their frequency in Windows + IE and compare with Chrome or Chrome OS. The prior has a *lot* more. Also take into consideration that Microsoft have a policy of not reporting about vulnerabilities unless they are releasing a patch to fix them. Chrome and others announce vulnerabilities before patching. So, how many are MS sitting on while they fix? Lack of statistics is not proof of their non-existence.

 

No, I'm not a fanboy - I'm doing my job. My job is to provide a network with which teachers can do their job easily and effectively. That job is teaching. If I remove Java, they lose access to a number of pieces of software which they use to teach with. If I remove Flash, we lose access to masses of sites. If I remove Chrome, they end up with a lower quality experience of the web. If I spend my entire time focussing on security, rather than balancing security against practicality, then I will be sacked, plain and simple. My employer wants a facilitator, not an obstacle.

 

I don't know what kind of world you live in where everything is logged if it is printed, but our MIS systems in the UK don't do that. We don't block USB sticks, we don't prevent staff from installing software on their computers either. Again, this is a balancing act of security vs functionality. Locking things down would definitely increase security, but it would also mean the school would need to hire more IT staff to be checking software that teachers want/need to teach with. It'd mean staff not being able to take their laptops home and use their home internet or printers. It'd be obstructing them in their execution of their jobs. It just isn't going to happen. A massive number of schools operate in this way.

 

I'm going to go out of my way here and judge that you have a different job to many of us - your job appears to be one of technical control only. One of ensuring PCs turn on, and that data is secure according to a predefined definition of secure. My job is to facilitate teaching and learning through technology.

Edited March 23, 2013 by localzuk

[Arthur]

they also compromised Windows devices inside Google's China offices, serves them right for running XP ten years too late.

Google also forgot to install EMET.

 

Microsoft claims that the Aurora malware attacks against Google, for example, would have been prevented by EMET, even though the flaw exploited in those attacks was not patched at the time. (Source)

 

http://i.imgur.com/BKImT6g.jpg

 

The data suggests that system administrators can significantly reduce their attack surface now by upgrading to the latest versions of their operating system and application software or by deploying EMET, or both. (Source)

 

EMET is a tool designed by the Microsoft team to specifically look for those mitigation techniques used such as a heap-spray and ROP to bypass popular mechanisms such as Address Space Randomization Layout (ASLR) or Data Execution Prevention (DEP). Firing up the tool, we choose to enable different exploit protection mechanisms such as enforcing hardware-based DEP, ensuring Safe Structure Handling, Detecting Heap-Sprays, … In this case, we are going to protect the Internet Explorer 8 web browser attacked in CVE-2012-4792.

 

Repeating the exploit with EMET 3.5 running, we see an interesting notification before Internet Explorer gracefully terminates. EMET detects the heap-spray and terminates. (Source)

[SPM]

That does depend on how they have implemented it, chrome is Googles second attempt to make their own OS and running it without a virtualisation container has to make it more than a little of a mess, just like Java. All of these browsers are little mini Cesers trying to eat their hosts and become an OS in their own right, ChromeOS, Firefox for mobile. By trying to make a document format into a programming language they have attempted to switch the power base. It's funny because in their quest they have always gone with the universality of access and now there is all of these sites that 'only' work on Chrome or Firefox. They are worming their way in with the exact same practices that everyone got pissed at Windows for but suprisingly are all for this new order of the same thing perpitrated less efficiently by their favorite companies.

 

Google's play with Chrome is fundamentally different from Netscapes' OS in a browser concept. Microsoft saw Netscape as a threat to their existence which they had to eliminate because Netscape plug-ins allowed a means of running full blown (local) applications portable to any OS on which you could install Netscape on, without the application being tied to the Windows operating system. At a time before Windows 95 had established itself, had Microsoft not acted, Netscape plug-in apps would have blunted Microsoft's drive to gain its desktop app environment monopoly.

 

Chrome is similar, but the difference is that it offers Native Client (which will become Portable Native Client this summer) for running C, C++, and C# code compiled into machine code locally. Unlike Native Client or Netscape Plug-ins which is just a way of running local apps in Netscape, the Portable Native Client technology is open and fully portable between any device regardless of CPU architecture, which is important for unifying the PC and non PC clients. The CPU independence will potentially make it a W3C standard candidate, unlike Netscape plug-ins but there is a lot of resistance to additions to the HTML standards by vested interests who keep blocking them, which is why video and audio standardization in HTML5 took so long. It is likely that Portable Native client will be a similar case with regard to HTML5 adoption for the same reason. Nevertheless with the addition of PNaCl and Google's spec for packaged offline apps, Chrome browser is a full OS in itself, capable of doing anything and everything that Windows can do.

 

The big difference between Chrome and Netscape browsers is that where Netscape's plug-in environment was an OS in a browser which allowed local apps to be run on any OS supported by Netscape browsers, Chrome allows those apps to be fully portable via the cloud, and between different CPU architectures - even in the case of locally running code or offline apps. Where local data or code is required to be stored on the local device, it is stored in the cloud and cached locally, so that it is portable across the cloud.

 

HTML5 is another big difference. Your comment about a document format was true of earlier versions of HTML, but not for HTML5 which is an asynchronous display format, not a static document format. It works exactly like your Windows desktop windowing environment, where individual elements in a window can be updated and can generate keyboard and mouse events, just like on Windows apps. Again, an HTML5 window can do anything and everything a Windows application can do and just as efficiently. The main difference is that Chrome web apps sync everything to the cloud automatically and only cache locally. It is not like the the old HTML markup language at all where you have to refresh the whole page to update any changed part of it. Basically HTML5 is like a universal, standardised windowing system that runs on every device conceivable. It will lead to a very rapid proliferation of web apps once it is formally ratified in 2014, although most of the pieces are in place now.

 

Regarding Portable Native Client apps, I think it will be very important, but mainly for the use it allows of the huge range of C, C++, and C# code in existing libraries rather than speed. Rather having to recode it into server code and Javascript for the local side of the client server app, you can re-use these directly. You will also see applications requiring speed use it as well - mainly games, video/audio/photo editing, codec processing, 3D Cad etc. In particular I think you will see a lot of legacy C, C++ coded PC games jump to Native Client.

 

I agree with you about not being able to protect against the host OS's vulnerabilities, which is why it is probably better to use a Chromebook to run Chrome on, and if you need Windows at all, to virtualise it on a Windows terminal server and access it via a Chromebook. Indeed if you want the highest level of security with Windows desktop use, that is achieved by putting Windows on a Terminal server, blocking off all access to it other than https via Ericom Access Now, and not allowing download of files from it other than in a tightly restricted manner. Once files are downloaded to a PC or laptop, it is very difficult to secure them. Not allowing it off your server and requiring users to log in and use the https interface to run apps and other desktop tasks on the secure server, and using a secure web client like a Chromebook which doesn't store data locally (except encrypted local temporary caches if not disabled), it the most secure way to do Windows computing.

Edited March 28, 2013 by SPM

[SYNACK]

@SPM - angling for a job there?

 

HTML5 may have fixed some of the issues but it is still not the only solution, if security was everything then everyone would be running BSD on extensively tested hardware. As to just as efficient, that is also debatable, I don't care what you say that interpreting layer still adds overhead, even if it is only once or more likely every time to keep the whole JS JIT alive.

[Jimmer3568]

No, I'm not a fanboy - I'm doing my job. My job is to provide a network with which teachers can do their job easily and effectively. That job is teaching. If I remove Java, they lose access to a number of pieces of software which they use to teach with. If I remove Flash, we lose access to masses of sites. If I remove Chrome, they end up with a lower quality experience of the web. If I spend my entire time focussing on security, rather than balancing security against practicality, then I will be sacked, plain and simple. My employer wants a facilitator, not an obstacle.

 

I think this is bang on. I come from a corporate background, there everything is locked down as mush as possible. Having just completed my 2nd term in a school, I've had a big change of mind. More and more I'm coming round to the idea that IT is about flexibility and allowing users (Teachers) the freedom to experiment and innovate in the way they want to use IT. I now see my role as providing a stable, reliable platform on which users can operate in the way which suits them. (Which is sometimes a pain in the backside, but the corporate "lockdown" model is a sure way to stop technology being used).

 

I think.

[dave.81]

We've had some Chromebooks on trial and in our experience they have easily outdone the laptops/netbooks/tablets we have trialled with the same group of junior school students. We have purchased some to replace the netbooks that were stolen.

[Arthur]

I don't think this number is accurate. 1% of the market, which I think is from web usage statistics certainly is a lot more than 500,000.

Chrome OS hasn't even managed 0.1% according to the latest stats... :eek:

 

First real-world usage figures suggest Chromebooks are struggling « ZDNet

 

In its first week of monitoring worldwide usage of Google's Chrome OS, NetMarketShare reported that the percentage of web traffic from Chromebooks was roughly 2/100 of 1 percent, a figure too small to earn a place on its reports.

 

To put things in perspective, as of April 2013 all Chromebooks combined have managed to achieve 7/10 of 1 percent of the usage of Windows 8 PCs worldwide.

 

Put another way, that figure suggests that in nearly two years on the market, all of those Chromebooks have achieved a smaller percentage of usage than Windows RT earned as of January 2013, after only three months on the market. Windows RT has been widely considered a disappointment, with OEMs cutting prices for RT-powered devices.

 

In both categories, those tiny results suggest a fair amount of pain for the OEMs that jumped in early. Google’s gone all-in for its cloud-based OS, and Microsoft is similarly gung-ho about the future of its Windows RT operating system. But it might be another couple of years before the general buying public is really ready for either one.

 

If Windows 8 / RT has 'flopped', I'm not sure what word you would use to describe Chrome OS and Chromebooks?

[Arthur]

Does HP seriously expect people to buy rubbish like this?

 

HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook review: a first attempt at Chrome OS that cuts too many corners « Engadget

 

"The company simply made too many compromises when it decided to build its first Chromebook from a recycled PC chassis. While it's reasonably thin and light for a 14-inch laptop, the non-standard keyboard layout and antiquated trackpad are deal breakers. Add a lackluster display and mediocre battery life to the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. The Pavilion 14's only redeeming qualities are its zippy performance, decent speakers and solid build quality. Is it worth $329? Absolutely not."

 

http://i.imgur.com/OWZTWxG.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/naGaeEr.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/Lr2oM0l.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/E4XA1AB.jpg

 

Then there's HP's trackpad. Oh, the trackpad -- it's something right out of a landfill full of dead Compaq laptops. Welcome back to 2003. The Pavilion 14 is the first Chromebook to ditch the one-piece clickable trackpad that's commonplace today. What you get instead are two overly stiff buttons below a roughly patterned surface -- it looks and feels terrible. Then there's the unused button / indent (and matching LED) in the top-left corner of the trackpad, which is designed to toggle the trackpad on / off in Windows, but does absolutely nothing here. At least two-finger scrolling works -- it's just not nearly as smooth as on other Chromebooks. None of the other gestures illustrated in the tutorial that ships pre-installed with every Chromebook are supported. We're not sure how that slipped through the cracks (see screenshot above), but we're guessing that first-time buyers are going to be quite confused.

[Arthur]

New Chromebooks are due to be released in October and November.

 

...around late October Google will launch a new set of laptops, together with many of its hardware partners, that will be available in November. (Source)

 

The first one is from Acer.

 

https://plus.google.com/106333172328928589411/posts/cctmNmWswRd

 

Specs

• 11,6" TFT WXGA High Definition WXGA CineCrystal™
  
• LED-backlit 1366 x 768
  
• Intel Dual Core 1007u Processor (1.5Ghz)
  
• 4GB DDR3 RAM
  
• 16 GB SSD
  
• Intel HD Graphics HDMI
  
• HD Webcam
  
• 2 in 1 (SD/MMC)
  
• 3 x USB 2.0 / Fast Ethernet
  
• 802.11 a/g/n WIFI (2.4 & 5Ghz)
  
• Chiclet keyboard
  
• Multi-gesture Touchpad
  
• Li-ion 6 cells
  

 

http://i.imgur.com/fZoYOsw.jpg

[SYNACK]

Well, I now know of one school round here that has gone chromebook for their byod devices. Wouldn't have been my choice but edu seems full of stupid ICT decisions round here.

[Arthur]

New Haswell-based ChromeOS devices from Asus, Acer, HP and Toshiba were announced today. Perhaps with these, Google will be able to reach 0.2% marketshare?

 

• chrome.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/a-fresh-mix-of-intel-based-chromebooks.html
  
• engadget.com/2013/09/11/google-and-intel-announces-new-haswell-chromebooks/
  

http://i.imgur.com/WJ9PEyf.jpg

[gshaw]

Still find it a bit amusing that a device that's meant to be lean and light on system resources due to the cloud focus still needs cutting edge CPU power and ends up not much cheaper than a standard laptop

[Arthur]

Also quite funny is that the Intel Chromebooks have significantly better battery life than Samsung's ARM Chromebook (6.5 hours vs 8.5-9.5). Shouldn't it be the other way around?

 

http://i.imgur.com/MUzXbsq.jpg

[Arthur]

Why the NSA loves Google’s Chromebook « Ars Technica

 

If recent revelations from Brazil are correct, Chromebook plus a government-forged Google certificate equals a man-in-the-middle attack against the SSL security of Google's services—and a way for the government to read all of your e-mails and documents as they pass back and forth through an Internet chokepoint to and from your browser.

 

None of this is necessarily Google's fault. But it's a weakness of the browser as platform—by pushing nearly all the computing resources for applications, beside presentation, back up into the cloud, the Chromebook model creates a one-stop shop for attackers or observers to inject themselves into your computing world.

[Arthur]

HP Chromebook 14 to be released 3rd November for $299/£250 « OMG Chrome

 

The $299/£250 laptop comes in a choice of three colours (all with ridiculous descriptions) and packs an Intel Haswell 1.4Ghz Celeron 2955U CPU at its core.

 

Don’t let the word ‘Celeron’ put you off – these 22nm processors deliver far better performance than previous chips but with far less battery use.

 

HP say that the Chromebook 14 is good for 9.5 hours on a single charge (though expect an hour or so lower in ‘real world’ usage).

 

Ports wise the device provides 2x USB 2.0, a sole USB 3.0, full-size SD card slot and a HDMI out.

 

A 4G model will follow the release of the Wi-Fi only model with a slightly higher price of $349. A 32GB model will also be made available according to an HP rep we spoke to.

 

Full Specs

• 14" Screen (1366 x 768)
  
• Intel Celeron 2955U @ 1.4Ghz (Haswell, Dual Core)
  
• Intel HD Integrated Graphics
  
• 2GB RAM
  
• 16GB SSD
  

Initial hands-on reviews are tempered, most praising the OS and but not so much the materials housing it. The plastic trackpad in particular seems to bear the brunt of criticism.

 

But the large battery price, decent specs and affordable price offsets many of these concerns. Short of Toshiba or Acer’s new models pipping this, the HP Chromebook 14 appears to be the device to beat.

 

http://i.imgur.com/zvLZUxl.jpg

 

^ Why is HP incapable of making a trackpad that doesn't suck!

[Arthur]

Every Windows 8/8.1 PC is now a Chromebook! If you enable Kiosk Mode, you could boot straight into "ChromeOS".

 

Google is building Chrome OS straight into Windows 8 « The Verge

 

In the latest dev channel release the UI and functionality is identical to Chrome OS. There's a shelf with Chrome, Gmail, Google, Docs, and YouTube icons that can be arranged at the bottom, left, or right of the screen. Like Chrome OS, you can create multiple browser windows and arrange them using a snap to the left or right of the display or fullscreen modes. An app launcher is also available in the lower left-hand corner.

 

While the Chrome browser acts as a Windows 8 application, it's using a special mode that Microsoft has enabled specifically for web browsers. The software maker allows browsers on Windows 8 to launch in its "Metro-style" environment providing they're set as default. The apps themselves aren't listed in the Windows Store and they're still desktop apps, but the exception allows them to mimic Windows 8 apps and access the app contracts and snapping features of the OS. While Chrome will obviously run in this mode on Windows 8, Microsoft does not permit this type of behavior on Windows RT.

 

http://i.imgur.com/N9lQWRr.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/JrTQnKl.jpg

[Arthur]

Still find it a bit amusing that a device that's meant to be lean and light on system resources due to the cloud focus still needs cutting edge CPU power and ends up not much cheaper than a standard laptop

If the new Chromebook 11 can't cope with many websites today, I hate to think what it will be like in two years. This probably won't stop schools buying them in the 1,000's however.

 

HP Chromebook 11 Review « Slashgear

 

It is said that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is, and the Chromebook 11 is no exception. Though this diminutive laptop is beautiful and has quite the solid construction, it lags (no pun intended) in the performance department, so much so that even those who have never used a higher-end laptop will still likely end up frustrated when using it. If a picture is worth a thousand words, the video below is twice as valuable.

 

This audio stutter was, unfortunately, more of the norm than an exception when browsing and watching video and listening to music. While low-load websites like Google.com don’t result in a stutter, stepping up to a website like Facebook, for example, resulted in some minor stutter, and more content heavy ones like our own and CNN.com resulted in pretty harsh stuttering and system bogging. On occasion, such a happening is forgivable, but after the first dozen times it became preferable to stop playing audio altogether rather than deal with the issue.

 

 

 

 

^ Skip to

in the video above to see more stuttering.

[Ephelyon]

Interesting to see how this thread has developed over these couple of years. Some very interesting comments and a worthwhile read.

 

My personal take on moving towards using someone else's infrastructure rather than your own is that it's a massive strategic decision that should be taken when, and only when, it's right for this particular organisation. I don't want to be going cloud-based just "because it's the future".

 

Another important point is that once you move one service over, it almost certainly won't stop there. I'm going to be so esoteric as to go for a Star Trek reference and quote "with the first link, the chain is forged". It's the start of a very big journey that, as with anything else that massive, ought to be properly change-managed, and my worry is that I see this happening a lot without that process in place.

 

Moving from Situation A to Situation B is not the same as starting with B. Arguably the cloud IS the future for a lot of organisations, but then we have to look at why. Often these are either start-ups (or in education, new schools) or organisations that, for whatever reason over the past 6-7 years, haven't opted to develop their core platform such that anytime, anywhere access is already in place and working well.

 

Our core platform is a virtual infrastructure (albeit a fairly small one as we're not a big school, two production hosts and one redundant) that has plenty of expansion available and can basically handle whatever's thrown at it - which is what it was designed for and should be a core principle of any system design, be it in business, education, healthcare, you name it. Bought a new service that needs its own server instance, such as Securus? Fine, whack it on the secondary host and give it 4GB RAM to begin with.

 

(Aside: this is why I disagree with the SLICT view that IT strategy begins by "generating a vision for education", i.e. how the system will be used. No, no, no... you develop a core platform that can handle whatever it needs to, then you have maximum flexibility for how it will be used and the exact functions can be worked out at a later date with minimal restrictions. Over the decades, the power of IT has always been that it is generic, and therefore has limitless applications when set up properly. I'm not saying the use of the system isn't a very important factor, I'm just saying it's not the only one, nor should everything else under the sun revolve around it as you will, you just WILL miss a number of other important factors if you start thinking about it that way - seen it so many times! It limits your perspectives because IT developments are actually a two-way process, with the industry changing all the time and these changes being fed back into "client sectors", not just the other way round.)

 

Anyway... multiple DR options are in place, including offsite backups to another school where we've colocated a server (and are waiting to reciprocate if they ask). Unsure of what a bulk operation will do in SIMS, or whether a Service Pack will break a server? Fine, leave it till out of hours then snapshot the VM, make your changes and see... snap back again if you need to. Or, even better, run up your DR replicas on the redundant host and make your changes there first to test. I can do that with MY infrastructure because I control it completely... if you're only going for a SaaS cloud solution rather than IaaS or PaaS, you don't have those options.

 

Then there's a virtual RemoteApp server with access to most of a host's 12 cores and 48GB of RAM allocated to it that obviously makes for VERY fast remote access from home to the complete school environment, and during the day that's also used in school to provide the same environment (guarded by Securus) on e.g. tablets, if it's anything more than simple web browsing that they want to do. Exchange is in place for e-mail and offers a few unique customisations like importing our set lists from SIMS as distribution groups in AD (yes, I know you could use the same PowerShell commands on Office 365). Basically we have a very small-scale equivalent of a "private cloud" setup in place... which is what EVERYONE should have by now, though granted if budgets or senior manglement have got in the way there, it's hardly IT's fault.

 

Now, granted, if you haven't got all of the above in place and are concerned about the costs of getting it there... and/or if you're concerned about the costs of employing someone to maintain it (which since there are only two of us and we'd still be needed anyway becomes moot)... then using someone else's infrastructure becomes a very real option and is worthy of consideration. But if you DO already have that, then the question around moving away from it becomes very much "Why?" rather than "Why not?" in my opinion. It must be a choice made by each individual organisation according to their own needs, not a decision that we rush into "because it's the future" (whose?) or "because everyone else is" (why?).

 

That is all.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Ephelyon

[zag]

Microsoft Should Be Worried About Google’s Chromebooks | TechCrunch

[Arthur]

Dell is making a Chromebook designed for schools.

 

Come tomorrow, Dell will take the wraps off of its very first Chromebook, which has been dubbed the Dell Chromebook 11. Specifics are scant at the moment, but we do know that the laptop (which will likely have an 11-inch display) has been designed for use in schools. Fret not Chrome OS fans who no longer have recess to brighten your day, the company is expected to announce Chromebooks for businesses and the Average Joe next year. (Source)

[gshaw]

Given the choice I'd rather have an Android tablet with a keyboard than a Chromebook, Android is arguably more flexible with a wider range of apps and has the benefit of touchscreen for less money. Will the two ever converge or is there some sort of phone = Android, laptop = ChromeOS strategy going on for the long-term?

 

Agree Microsoft are in trouble if they can't hit back with a similarly priced quality Windows 8 Pro tablet \ laptop hybrid. They haven't managed since Win8's release and they're running out of time at this rate now Google are getting more aggressive with the Chromebook marketing \ sales drive.

Edited December 11, 2013 by gshaw

[Arthur]

Given the choice I'd rather have an Android tablet with a keyboard than a Chromebook, Android is arguably more flexible with a wider range of apps and has the benefit of touchscreen for less money.

Why not have both? An Android tablet and a touchscreen Chromebook? The best of both worlds!

 

Android is arguably more flexible

Except when it comes to multi-tasking, which sucks on Android. Even simple things like writing posts with lots of links and quotes involves too much faffing about in the EduGeek Android app.

 

Will the two ever converge

Android will be able to run Chrome packaged apps apps early next year, although the two OSs won't be converging any time soon.

 

The picture may look different a year or two from from now, but in the short term, we have Android and we have Chrome, and we are not changing course. (Source)

 

Microsoft are in trouble if they can't hit back with a similarly priced quality Windows 8 Pro tablet/laptop hybrid.

What's wrong with the Bay Trail hybrid's like the Asus Transformer Book T100 and why do consumers need the Pro version of Windows 8.1?

 

they're running out of time at this rate now Google are getting more aggressive with the Chromebook marketing/sales drive.

Have you seen Amazon's best selling laptops list recently? Thirteen out of the top twenty laptops run Windows. I don't think Microsoft should be worried just yet.

[Arthur]

It's official!

 

Dell Chromebook 11 for Education

 

It should be available starting in January of next year for under $300, and will be sold through Dell.com in the U.S. and the U.K. It’s an Intel-powered device with a Celeron 2955U processor (interesting choice), 10 hours of battery life, 16GB of onboard flash storage, and two configurations of RAM, including a 4GB and a 2GB option. The screen on the new machine is a 1366×768 display, and there’s a 720p front-facing webcam for video conferencing. It has 802.11n Wi-Fi, and is under an inch thick, weighing just under 3 pounds 1.36 kg. I/O includes two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port and Bluetooth 4.0. (Source)

 

http://snag.gy/plcko.jpg

Edited December 11, 2013 by Arthur