Thinking of a Chromebook for Christmas? Wait until 2016

Launched with fanfare last spring as the ultimate simple computer for both individuals and enterprises, the Google Chrome OS-powered Chromebooks got tepid reviews that boiled down to “great idea, but I need something that works when I’m offline, too.” Still, the notion of a laptop that has no operating system to manage and puts email, social networking, photo sharing, Web surfing, news reading, and Angry Birds all in a browser may appeal to those looking for a Christmas gift for the grandparents, the kids, or that technologically disinterested friend or relative. The idea of simpler computing has strong emotional appeal.

Sorry to say, don’t do it. Even if you buy into the Chromebook’s premise, the execution doesn’t really support it — whether for a casual user or a business seeking to get out of Windows management. Maybe that’ll change by 2016, if wireless broadband is truly ubiquitous and affordable, if Chrome OS and Google Docs finally support offline usage, and if somehow Windows 8 and the iPad haven’t become the standard computing platforms of the day.

No buyers, no momentum
First, there’s strong evidence that the Chromebook is a major flop:

• Despite the support of Samsung and Acer, it appears Chromebook sales have been minuscule. Neither IDC nor Gartner tracks Chomebooks sales data per se, because of its lack of market presence, but IDC analyst Tom Mainelli, who tracks the tablet and netbook space, estimates that at most 300,000 units have shipped to retailers, with an unknown percentage in customers’ hands. He compares that to the estimated 31 million netbooks and 210 million laptops shipped this year.
• Mainelli also notes that when IDC asked Samsung last week about its Chromebook sales and plans, the company quietly changed topics.
• Google itself has not delivered a version of Google Docs that would work offline — which it had promised to do last year while the Chromebook was still in beta. Mainelli says a Chromebook “can’t pass go” if it can’t be used offline. I believe if Google were really serious about the Chromebook, this would have been a huge priority. Its continued absence suggests that the Chromebook is yet another Google project thrown up against the wall and then left to fade away.
• The Chrome Web Store’s selection of apps for Chrome OS remains a paltry collection of mainly widgets and simplistic apps. There are many more titles of value in the Apple iOS App Store and the Google Android Market.

All of these play into each other to sustain the lack of momentum: Poor sales means app developers won’t invest; lack of apps means users won’t buy unless they really want just a portable browser — in which case a tablet or PC at the same price beckons as a safer decision.

Even if Google is committed to Chrome OS and the Chromebook project for the long term — after all, this was a rare Google product launch that had live human beings, notably then-CEO and now-chairman Eric Schmidt, publlicly promoting it — it’s not clear why Samsung and Acer would continue to invest in what is essentially a distraction. There’s much more opportunity for them in the Android tablet market and perhaps in the Ultrabook PC market. Maybe Google will pay them to stay involved; it likely would take such a subsidy for them to remain engaged beyond this year.

Mainelli suspects the Chromebook project got the go-ahead at Google when netbooks were all the rage around 2008 as a delivery vehicle for its cloud apps — a cloud appliance, basically. For hardware makers, I suspect Google’s pitch was the Chromebook as a cheaper form of netbook (no pricey Windows licenses or hard drives required), which would explain Samsung’s and Acer’s interest. But by the time the Chromebooks shipped in mid-2011, the netbook market was in a serious decline due to the iPad’s 2010 debut and the increased supply of midlevel laptops for the same price as a Chromebook. And they all could run cloud apps.

Consumers can get more elsewhere for the same price
A big flaw in the Chromebook is its low value. Chromebooks cost about as much as an iPad, Android tablet, or midlevel PC: They range from $400 to $700, with most models above $500. All those devices can be used in browser mode à la Chome OS, and all support thin client access to back-end resources. But they work offline and provide access to many, many more apps than Chrome OS’s Web world does.

It’s true that Chromebooks don’t require the kind of management and maintenance that a Windows PC or Mac does, but they also can’t print (well, they sort of can in some circumstances, with a level of effort that approaches Linux PCs), play DVDs, connect to iTunes, or run common, compelling apps such as Quicken and Aperture. It’s clear that users will deal with Windows 7 or Mac OS X to get those advantages, and that tablets — particularly the iPad — come much closer to that richer value proposition than a Chromebook does.

You can see this in what people actually do. I tend to fly Virgin America, which has a big kiosk in several airports providing a free loaner of a Chromebook with free Wi-Fi on the flight. I have yet to see anyone actually borrow and use them. I do see lots of iPads and laptops. Maybe I missed some Chromebook users on those flights, but the fact that they’re invisible despite the free usage and free Wi-Fi tells me that users don’t see the point. Then again, what would you do with a Chromebook on a plane other than check email, touch up work in Gogle Docs (if your documents are already loaded), and surf the Web? — you can’t stream video via an airplane’s limited bandwidth connection, and music would be iffy too. Maybe you could connect to Amazon.com to download and read a book — oops, there is no Kindle app for Chrome OS.

The business promise is hollow, too
Google strongly pushed the notion of Chromebooks being more than just café computers for casual users. It positioned the Chromebook as a reborn thin client, where IT wouldn’t have to worry about hardware setup, Windows (or Mac or Linux) configuration, and all the pesky problems of users doing things locally. The zero-configuration, zero-management PC had arrived!

Yet Mainelli never hears businesses talking about deploying Chromebooks. By contrast, almost every business is deploying iPads, and many are using thin client apps like Citrix Receiver to provide the thin client access that has the same IT advantages that Google promised. Plus, they get offline usage not offered by the Chromebook.

The combination of the iPad (and increasingly Android laptops) with thin client apps seems to have satisfied both the users’ needs and IT’s needs. The Chromebook, by contrast, doesn’t. There’s the lack of ability to use it when offline, and although you might argue that a business’s users would be in Wi-Fi range and not be subject to connectivity gaps, the Chromebooks are laptops that of course will leave the confines of the wireless LAN.

Then there’s the reality that Google’s fundamental approach to technology contradicts IT’s approach. IT needs a stable, long-term platform. “That’s not the Google way,” Mainelli says. Google updates the OS regularly with no rollback provision, for example. iOS has the same issue, but businesses have apparently come to terms with that due to its many other advantages. “I’m consistently amazed by the number of enterprises rolling out iPad implementations,” he says.

Perhaps more damning is Google’s history of routinely launching and shutting down projects, which contributes to a basic lack of trust in the Chrome OS’s longevity. Google claims it’s committed, but its actions elsewhere instill major doubt that the commitment will last.

Mainelli also notes that the whole notion of thin client computing has been around 15 years, with little uptake beyond a few narrow industries like health care. “It’s always on the cusp,” he says. The Chromebook’s thin client focus is not where the action is, even if IT were comfortable in Google’s commitment.

Mainelli says businesses that have adopted Google Docs might be where the Chromebook’s thin client promise would gain traction. (For the rest, “it’s a nonstarter.”) But so far, businesses and agencies that have adopted Google Docs aren’t adopting Chromebooks. Instead, they’re using regular PCs, which give them access to other resources and job-specific apps that a Chromebook can’t access.

All of this could change over the next several years, of course. Wireless Internet ubiquity could solve the offline issue, the rise of HTML5 could make seriously useful Web apps common for any browser, and Windows 8, Mac OS X, and iOS could become so ungainly that simplicity becomes a meaningful selling point.

Never say never, but you can trust me that if a Chromebook appeals to you conceptually, this Christmas is not the time to act on that appeal.

This article, “Thinking of a Chromebook for Christmas? Wait until 2016,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com.