Competition: Win one of three Google Chromebooks

Google give T3 readers to win the new Google Chromebooks

Last month at Google I/O Google officially unveiled the new Chromebooks from Acer and Samsung — the first of a totally new kind of device that will utilise the web-based Chrome OS in series of slim line stylish shells that will be available through online retails for the first time on June 24th.

To celebrate the arrival of the new Google Chromebooks we at T3 have teamed up with the folks at Google to give you the chance to win one of three Chromebooks. To stand a chance of winning one of these great new Chromebooks simply follow the link and solve Google’s craftily designed puzzle.

Google has worked with its expert puzzle master to design a puzzle that should keep you busy for a while.  If you’re up to the challenge and are one of the first three to come up with the correct solution, you can win a new Chromebook.

If you find the puzzle just a little too tasking fret not, we will be supplying you with three clues throughout the day so stay tuned to the T3 Twitter and Facebook feeds if in need of a helping hand.

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Offline Google Docs starts playing peek-a-boo

One of the big criticisms of Google's Chromebooks is that they're significantly less useful when you don't have an Internet connection or are paying by the megabyte for a wireless data plan. That drawback is particularly glaring when it comes to Google Docs.

And unfortunately for Google, the company missed the Chrome OS launch window with one important upgrade coming to Google Docs, the ability to use the word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software while not connected to the Net.

Offline Google Docs was slated to arrive early this year, but Google pushed it back. In May, Google promised offline Google Docs this summer and said it's testing the feature internally.

And apparently, it's not just internal: the unofficial Google Operating System blog reported a case in which a reader saw a black status bar at the top of the browser window with the label "Offline Docs," the alert "network connection lost," and apparent links for "switch to online mode" and "switch to offline mode."

On Friday, I collaborated with several other writers collectively writing a single document--and we even used Google Docs' chat abilities when Yahoo Messenger's chat room faltered. Right now, I can see words I'm writing on my Mac appearing across the room on my Windows machine--a silly curiosity were it not for the fact that I need to use multiple computers. I've looked up needed information on Google Docs with my smartphone. The power of building the network into Google Docs is truly impressive.

But Google Docs' offline shortcomings afflict me me whenever I'm on a train going into London, vacationing in Cornwall, suffering a DSL outage at home, avoiding exorbitant data roaming fees abroad, or working at a tech conference with overwhelmed Wi-Fi.

Unlike Googlers, I'm not equipped with unlimited data plans. During these moments of unconnectedness, I crack open Microsoft Office again and afterward deal with the annoyance of mirroring the files back into my online archive.

So I for one would like to see offline Google Docs arrive as soon as possible--and offline Gmail, Calendar, and anything else in the Google Apps service, while we're at it.

In a Reddit discussion last week, Google Docs product manager Jeff Harris blamed the significant technical challenge of the task for the delays.

It should be noted that one of those offline technologies, IndexedDB, is still in somewhat early days of the standardization process and hasn't necessarily won over all the browser makers. Don't be surprised therefore if only early fans such as Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome support offline Docs.

The Gears approach to offline Google Docs provided the feature earlier but with significant limits. For example, spreadsheets couldn't be edited offline.

Technical challenges arise when offline Docs go online again, particularly when multiple people are editing the same document.

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8 reasons why Chromebook OS is awkward

Google’s cloud-based Chromebook comes with a lot of promises as it has started to ship, but the Chrome OS vision leaves a lot to be desired in reality.

The Chrome OS web apps cannot boast of the same quality as that of the real apps, be it on a tablet or a computer. It’s built on the lines of your webmail. The Chromebook is not a success as is the foundational "Webtone" idea that Google got from Sun Microsystems.

Some of the reasons why Chromebook OS can be called awkward are:

If you are travelling you could have all your money wasted in paying the wi-fi charges at the airports, Starbucks coffee shops, and hotels. The free Verizon Wireless 3G data access that you can get with one of Samsung's Chromebooks is 100MB a month. You can lose a good amount of money to have access to 3Gdata.

With streaming music, videos and moving photos from the online photo service, you can imagine the shooting charges that will come along. You can only play a cached version of Angry Birds in Chromebook, without a connection.

Google was quoted as saying that the Chrome OS will only get faster as time goes by because it automatically updates itself. But even if the OS had the ability to update automatically in the cloud, the achilles heel in the Chrome OS is the Internet connection.

And with the OS running on computers that try to stay light in the hardware department, it leaves consumers at the mercy of unstable 3G connections or the fluctuation through the day in their broadband connections. Not to mention most of the cellular companies will probably be putting data caps on their consumers running 3G that may cripple the potential of the devices.

By storing all your data in cloud, it’s a waystation from all other computers, your Chromebook acts as a brick. If you use a Chromebook only in wi-fi hotspots, such as at home and at the office, the meter won't be running. So, the Chromebook is more plausible in terms of reliable connectivity.

Don’t try to sync to your iPod, because you cannot connect to iTunes then. Neither can you sync to BlackBerry, Droid, Zune, or other media devices, unless of course iOS 5 comes to the market. Ironically, they may be the only devices that Chromebook can connect to as iOS 5 allows its devices to work without a computer.

Chromebook was hyped after Google’s announcement that claimed that you could afford to lose your ’ thin client’ as your data would be lying safe as it functions on the cloud platform. Google also pitched for it saying that Chrome OS will never need virus protection and that your files will always be safe in the cloud.

Recently, Kaspersky Lab warned that Google’s Chromebook may still be used by cybercriminals to steal information by building new types of malicious software.

"Obviously, with all your data being available in the cloud, at one place, 24/7 through a fast Internet link, this will be a goldmine for cybercriminals. All that is necessary here is to get hold of the authentication tokens required to access the cloud account," Kaspersky Lab analyst Costin Raiu said in a statement.

If you don’t have an ePrint-capable wi-fi printer, you need a Windows PC on the network to act as a print server.

Chromebook, unlike iPads and other tablets, do not have Bluetooth, so you can’t get wireless peripherals.

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Five Chromebook concerns for businesses

Make no mistake about it. I like my Samsung Series 5 Chromebook a lot. I think it will become a major challenge to Windows on light-duty business desktops… eventually.

You see right now, as I’m well into week two with my Chromebook, I’m finding holes that need to be filled before I can see many businesses rolling work out on Chromebooks. Mind you, even as it is, I can see people using them for work. I am right now. But, until these problems are fixed Chromebooks aren’t going to be major business desktop players.

1. Where’s the VPN?

Chrome OS, and thus Chromebooks, actually have Virtual Private Network capability built-in, but it’s still a beta feature and it’s a pain-in-the-rump to find and activate. To turn on the VPN functionality-and other “experimental” features you need to run:

about:flags

from the address bar (aka URL bar). Then Enable VPN support from the list of Experiments.

After that, you can add a Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol/Internet Protocol Security (L2TP/IPSec) private network from the Chromebook’s network control. Currently Chrome OS supports L2TP/IPSec with either a pre-shared key or a user certificate. While L2TP/IPSec works with many VPN services, such as those from Cisco and Windows Server, it doesn’t work with all of them. For example, you can’t use L2TP/IPSec with my own favorite VPN server, OpenVPN.

It may be experimental, but I did get it to work with my Windows Server 2008 R2 VPN server without any additional trouble. The real question to me though is why the heck wasn’t this built-in and perfected before the first Chromebook shipped? To me, the market for Chromebooks has always been business and, to a lesser extent, education and both often require VPN use.

2. Some Wi-Fi Security still not supported.

While Chromebooks support most common Wi-Fi security methods, it doesn’t support all of them. The most glaring of these is that it can’t handle Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2) Enterprise with Extensible Authentication Protocol-Transport Layer Security (EAP-TLS) or Cisco’s Lightweight Extensible Authentication Protocol (LEAP). Like VPN support you can activate experimental support for WPA EAP-TLS and LEAP from the obscure about:flags command page.

To me, this is another “what the heck” failure. All the important Wi-Fi security mechanisms should have been in there from the start. This isn’t rocket science. The Samsung Series 5’s Qualcomm Atheros AR5BHB116 802.11n Wi-Fi card with its Atheros AR9382 chip is already certified for WPA2 EAP-TLS so there’s no technical reason the Chromebook can’t work with this network security protocol out of the box.

3. The Malfunctioning File Manager

To get to the Chromebook file system you use the keyboard command “Control M” or place a memory card in the reader. Fair enough. When you pick a file to work on though, strange things start to happen. You see Chrome OS isn’t sure what to do with different kinds of common file types.

For example, Chrome OS knows that it uses Google Docs to open Microsoft Word .DOC or OpenXML or LibreOffice’s Open Document Format files (ODF), and it can do so… if you upload the file to Google Docs. If you just try to double-click on it or otherwise open it from the file manager all you’ll get is an unknown file type error message? Huh!?

With other files, such as PNG graphic files, you’re given what you would expect when you try to open a file: a choice between viewing it or sending it to the Picasa Web site. You’re also given a preview of the image in the left sidebar of the file manager.

In the case of Adobe Acrobat PDF files, which Chrome OS can read natively, you’re not given a choice of what to do with the file or a preview. But, if you double-click on a PDF it will open.

This is just dumb. First, Google’s Chrome team needs to assign the common file types to the appropriate actions. Next, they need to provide a common interface for how the file manager deals with these files.

4. Easier System Access

You would think that everything of any importance on the Chromebook could be accessed via the Chrome Web browser. You would be wrong.

As you may know Chrome OS is based on Linux and the Chrome Web browser is its graphical user interface. Most of its system controls are accessed via the Wrench tool and the setting control. But, not only do you need to know about the about:flags to get to experimental services, you also need to know how to get to Chrome OS’ restricted command-line shell–the undocumented crosh shell–to do such basics as setting up a secure shell (SSH) secure network connection.

To get to the shell you need to simultaneously press control-alt-T. This command sequence is not listed in the Chrome OS keyboard overlay, which you can find by pressing control-alt-?.

From crosh the most important commands you can access is ssh, which can serve in place of a VPN in some circumstances, and modem. This last lets you access, if it’s installed, your 3G modem.

If you want you can set the Samsung Chromebook into developer mode. I recommend only Linux experts give this a try. Once there though you gain access to the far more powerful Bash shell.

5. Better Documentation

For 95% of what you want to do with a Chromebook, it’s as easy as using the Chrome Web browser. For most of its users it is, after all, 95% of it is the Chrome 12 Web browser. But, if you want to go one step further to do something as simple as setting up a VPN you’re pretty much on your own.

For instance, if you wanted to set up a VPN, as I desscribed above, what you’re more likely to find as you search for a way to do it is this “inspiring” message from the Chromebook FAQs:

Come on! Some documentation is easy to find and use. For example, despite what you may have heard it’s really not hard to set up printing from a Chromebook. Far too much of the Chrome OS is scattered as bits and pieces all over the Web.

That’s fine for someone like me. I make my living from finding the hidden nooks and crannies of hardware and software. It sucks though for anyone who just to use their Chromebook for work instead of using it as a hobby.

It may seem minor, but I think this documentation problem is the biggest one of all. I mean, who reads the manual right? Google has shown itself to be more than capable of revising their software at an incredible rate. It wouldn’t surprise me to see all the other problems fixed by the end of July. But, if the documentation is still in its current lousy state, how many users are going to know that can now easily set up a VPN, connect to a Wi-Fi network using WAP2 EAP-TLS? Not enough of them, that’s how many!

So get on the stick Google. You’ve got the potential for something great in the Chromebook. Don’t fritter it away with half-baked functionality and documentation.

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Google Pleased With Chromebook Sales

Chrome OS hardware finally went on sale this week, in the form of the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook, and Google is pleased with the way things have been going. The company isn't yet ready to discuss sales specifics but company insiders insist sales look good and there's corporate interest.

"We've been very pleased with the response to the Chromebooks subscription model since we launched," a Google spokesperson said in an email. "We officially opened for business two days ago (i.e., Wednesday) and there are businesses and schools signing order forms as we speak."

Over at Amazon.com, the Series 5 is ranked #10 on the list of Bestsellers in Computers & Accessories and appears likely to slip further down that list as initial demand wanes. Among the 12 customer reviews submitted so far, four suggest five stars, six suggest four stars, one suggests three stars, and one suggests one star.

Of three Series 5 reviews posted on BestBuy.com, there's a five-star, a four-star, and a three-star review.

Is your IT team taking ownership of the cloud?

Not bad for a product awaiting the delivery of a critical feature--the ability to function when offline. But not an unassailable success either.

The main issue for many is the price: $499 for the 3G Series 5 is frequently cited as too high. There's no shortage of other complaints either, although these often say more about personal technological preferences than anything else.

That's okay though, since Chromebooks aren't really ready for the consumer mass market. Google wasn't expecting the sort of frenzy that has accompanied iPad launches. There's not that much demand among consumers for a device that can render Web pages--something any modern PC can do--and Google has made no move to launch a large-scale marketing campaign to create such demand.

Google is making a long-term bet, a bet that has very little to do with hardware. Though Samsung has crafted an appealing notebook computer, Chrome OS hardware is meant to be more or less interchangeable. Note that Google's pitch for Chromebooks, "Nothing but the Web," describes a scene in which hardware is absent.

The hardware has to be discussed, poked, and prodded, but it's a sideshow. When it comes to web technology, gigahertz and core counts aren't nearly as important as WebGL, Canvas, and other HTML5 elements that make web apps competitive performance-wise with apps written for Android, Mac OS, iOS, and Windows.

Chromebooks are first and foremost a frame for the web and Google's Chrome browser, where Google ads flower into a revenue stream that is the envy of the tech industry. Second, they're PC-free, in the sense that Chromebooks (mostly) lack the maintenance and security issues that accompany PC ownership.

The main mission for the Chromebook is to offer an alternative to businesses and schools that might otherwise purchase PCs. With software like Ericom AccessNow and Citrix Receiver, organizations can offer easily managed Chromebooks to employees or students while also providing access to PC applications on virtualized desktops, at a total annual cost that's perhaps a quarter of what it costs to buy and maintain a PC.

Chromebooks will also find fans among consumers committed to living in the cloud, so to speak. That's a small group right now, but it will grow as more applications move online and more people become acclimated to life without local file management.

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David Pogue RIPS The Chromebook Apart In His Review

You can say all kinds of nice things about Google’s Chromebook laptop concept. You can say it’s ahead of its time. Or that it’s thinking way, way outside the box. Or that, as failures go, at least this one swung for the fences.

Last year, Google made limited quantities of the CR-48, a gorgeous, sleek, prototype black laptop that it sent to journalists and bloggers, seeking feedback. Its hope was that, eventually, real laptop companies would manufacture Chromebooks. Tomorrow, the first one goes on sale: the Samsung Series 5 ($500 with cellular, $430 Wi-Fi only).

So what is the Chromebook concept? Assumption 1: These days, you can get online almost anywhere. Assumption 2: Google’s free online software can do almost everything regular software can do — e-mail (Gmail), Web browsing (Chrome), chat (Google Talk), photos (Picasa), word processing, spreadsheets, slide shows (Google Docs).

Conclusion: A laptop doesn’t need a hard drive. Doesn’t need programs on it. Doesn’t need Windows or Mac OS X. Doesn’t need a desktop, files or folders. Everything you need is online, so all the laptop needs is a Web browser.

It’s a sexy idea. No hard drive? That means no moving parts and long battery life (8.5 hours on a charge). That also means lighter weight (3.3 pounds). The Samsung has only a 16-gigabyte SSD drive (basically a big memory chip, like on the iPad or iPhone).

No Windows? That means no viruses or spyware. No serial numbers or copy protection. No payments to Microsoft for upgrades every couple of years. No two-minute start-up process; a Chromebook starts up in under 10 seconds.

No files stored on the laptop? That means you don’t care if your Chromebook is lost or stolen. (Well, not as much.) You don’t have to worry about backups. You can log into any other Chromebook, and find your whole software world waiting for you.

The Samsung itself is beautiful, with a sparse, uncluttered MacBookish feel. The rounded edges of the black plastic body (and the white or silver top panel) make it a joy to hold — and to behold.

The typing feel is fantastic. The simplicity and purity of this laptop is refreshing and unthreatening; it’s like an iPad with a keyboard (and no touch screen).

Samsung/Google may, in fact, have gone a little too far in the pursuit of spartan elegance. Instead of a row of function keys at the top, you get dedicated keys for brightness, speaker volume and Web browsing (Back, Forward, Refresh, Full Screen, Next Window). There’s no Forward Delete key, Fn key, menu key, Print Screen key or Windows key (duh).

In fact, there’s not even a Caps Lock key. It’s great that Google wants to weed out keys it doesn’t think people use very much, but come on — Caps Lock? What’s next, the bracket keys? The semicolon? Q, Z and X?

(Deep on a Settings page, there’s a way to reassign the magnifying-glass key — the Search key for Web browsing — so that it performs the Caps Lock function. But even if that were an ideal solution, which it’s not, you’d be lucky to find it: Samsung doesn’t provide a single page of printed operating instructions.)

The laptop has two USB jacks, a Web cam, a video output jack, a memory card slot and a headphone/microphone jack — but no Bluetooth, Ethernet jack, FireWire port or DVD drive.

It’s really weird to use a computer where everything happens in your browser; if you attach a hard drive or flash drive, you even see its contents in a browser window. You can never quit or minimize the browser; there’s no desktop behind it, no matter what your instincts say.

But let’s give this shifted paradigm a chance. How well does Google’s newfangled concept hold up in the real world?

Unfortunately, not very well.

The first assumption is that you’re online everywhere you go. That’s rather critical, because when it’s not online, a Chromebook can’t do much of anything. You can’t peruse your e-mail, read documents or books or listen to music. With very few exceptions, when the Chromebook isn’t online, it’s a 3.3-pound paperweight. (Google says that an upgrade this summer will at least permit you to read your e-mail, calendar and Google Docs when you’re offline, and that over time, more apps will be written to be offline-usable.)

Maybe in Silicon Valley, where Google’s engineers live, you can live your entire life online. But in the real world, you can use this laptop only where you can find, and afford, Wi-Fi hot spots. Or a Verizon cell signal, if you’ve bought the $500 Samsung model.

Verizon offers two years of free service with that model, but you’re capped at 100 megabytes of data a month — a laughably small quota for a laptop that can’t even scratch its nose without an Internet connection. You can upgrade: for example, 1 gigabyte of data for $20 a month, or 5 gigabytes for $50. At least no two-year contract is required.

I tried valiantly to use the Samsung as my main machine, but by the end of a week, I was about ready to toss it like a Frisbee.

I took four flights with it. At each departure gate, I had to pay $7 for Wi-Fi. Three of the flights had no Wi-Fi on board, so the Chromebook sat uselessly in my bag. On the fourth, Wi-Fi cost $13. That’s right: $13 every time you fly, just to look at your own photos and documents. Then $17 for the hotel’s crummy Wi-Fi. Heaven help you on a cruise ship, where Wi-Fi can cost several dollars a minute.

What about the second assumption — that Google’s free online software can do everything you’d ever want?

Google’s software does the job for the basics (you can’t use a Chromebook without a Google account). But what if you want to run real, brand-name software? Photoshop? Quicken? Skype? World of Warcraft? FileMaker or Access? How will you sync or back up your iPad, iPhone or iPod if you can’t run iTunes? What about the specialized apps that your company might require?

The Chrome marketplace offers 1,000 Chrome programs. Most are free. But most are also lightweight, phone-type programs: weather, sports tickers and so on. They live online, so all you’re actually installing is a bookmark.

There’s another, more disturbing problem: doesn’t it make you feel a little antsy that your photo collection isn’t on a computer that you can put your hands on? That when the Internet goes down, you can’t get to any of your files?

Furthermore, Google says that its Chrome operating system is supersecure. But these days, every week brings another story of a hacker attack on a major corporation, and more of our private data stolen: Sony, Citibank and so on. In March, someone hacked a marketing company and gained access to the mailing lists of Best Buy, Wal-Mart, TiVo, CapitalOne, Marriott, the College Board, Hilton, Ritz-Carlton, US Bank, Chase Bank, Kroger, Barclays and many others.

Is “the cloud” really where you want to keep the only copies of your most private, most important files?

Truth is, considering how stripped-down the Samsung is, you have to wonder why it’s as big, heavy and expensive as it is. You can find plenty of full-blown Windows laptops with the same price, weight and size.

Maybe the Chromebook concept would fly if it cost $180 instead of $500. Maybe it makes more sense if you rent it (students and corporations can lease Chromebooks for $20 to $30 a month). Maybe it will fly once this country gets free coast-to-coast 4G cellular Internet, which should be just after hell freezes over.

For now, though, you should praise Google for its noble experiment. You should thrill to the possibilities of the online future. You should exult that somebody’s trying to shake up the operating system wars.

But unless you’re an early-adopter masochist with money to burn, you probably shouldn’t buy a Chromebook.

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Can the Chromebook change enterprise desktop IT?

With Google Chromebooks starting at around £350, the thin client, cloud-based computing device which runsGoogle's Chrome OS is no cheaper than a Windows 7 netbook. But unlike a netbook, the Chromebook relies on internet connectivity to access applications and store data.

Google claims businesses will buy Chromebooks because they offer significantly lower total cost of ownership figures, even when compared with a managed desktop environment.

The company also hinted that the products will be offered through a subscription package: "You will get warranty, service and a new computer with the Chromebook."

"On average, enterprises spend $3,000 per year on their PC environment for a well-managed PC desktop. We believe Chrome OS will be significantly cheaper," Google said.

The savings will come from the fact that Chromebooks reduce the need for administration software, maintenance and helpdesk costs, Google claimed. "You won't need anti-virus and firewalls," it said.

For $28 per user per month, Google is offering cloud-based management for its Chromebook, which it says enables an entire fleet of Chromebooks to be managed from a single web-based console.

Web-based model a strength or weakness?

At the Forrester IT Forum last week, George Colony, CEO of the analyst firm, slated the Chromebook because it relies on networking and does not take advantage of local processing power. In a cynical blog post, he wrote: "Without the web, Google's business model fails. Every time we search, Google gets a chance to make money based on advertising. That's why the company wants us to ditch our powerful laptops and trade them in for web-centric workstations that won't work unless they are linked to Google's servers."

Colony's views are at odds with the enterprise IT perspective, where the Chromebook is squarely aimed. Certainly, conceptually, the Chromebook moves IT further from traditional desktop computing, but there are many alternatives.

"Corporates certainly aren't sitting Canut-like against this endless tide of computing devices and cost-saving opportunities. However, maturity in large-scale IT management and application means the Chromebook will be evaluated critically and thoroughly - and in good time, despite promises of faster, easier and much cheaper," said Ollie Ross, research manager at The Corporate IT Forum.

"Its web-based strength for some will be a challenge for others. Its consumer device tag puts it in the same space as strong competitors, while its business-ready package is likely to carry the same concerns already challenging wholesale corporate uptake of cloud computing, which include OS, real-world support and data security," he added. "Revolution? Unlikely, but it is potentially another step away from the desktop strategies of yesterday."

Ray Titcombe, chairman of the IBM CUA, said: "I have followed Google's entry with this device for a while. My view is that for the cloud-committed and other mobile/browser-based environment organisations, it has potential - although the claims of web browsing optimisation are a little 'untested' across the various modes of use."

He points out that many companies have already developed web notebooks and stripped the operating systems down to make power-on a quick option, but says this launch does promise to make it "easy".

"I think the Chromebook has a lot of potential as a notebook PC alternative. The 12in screen is a great bridge between iPads and netbooks and traditional notebooks."

Can the Chromebook deliver on Google's promises?

So will the product live up to the hype?

"I know cloud services will reduces costs, but it is too early to say how and by how much," said one local government CIO and member of Socitm (Society of IT management).

Andrew McGrath, executive director, commercial, of Virgin Media Business, believes the new device should help drive uptake of both cloud services and mobile working. "We are all starting to use the cloud more in our day-to-day lives, whether it is a web e-mail service, music streaming site or a cloud-based CRM application. The launch of Chromebook by Google should help to further drive cloud adoption among businesses that had previously been unsure about switching to a virtual platform," he said.

But he warns that before embracing the cloud, businesses must ensure that they have the connectivity in place to support an increasingly dispersed, mobile workforce. "The right connectivity will become ever more important as these workers increasingly start to access mission-critical applications from the cloud," McGrath said.

IT monitoring software provider Opsview has warned that Chromebooks and similar devices are going to bring a new set of IT monitoring challenges. James Peel, product manager at Opsview, said: "[The Chromebook] will require a step-change in how organisations monitor and manage their IT in the future. There will be less physical infrastructure to monitor, but at the same time any cloud-based services used by the organisation need to be monitored to ensure that SLAs are being met and business performance is not hindered. Businesses cannot just rely on their service providers, they need to ensure they have ways to check they are getting the service levels they require."

For CIOs, the Chromebook is not regarded as a revolution. Thin clients have been around since Sun's former top man, Scott McNeally, proclaimed that the network is the computer, when he launched his PC alternative, the Javastation, in the late 1990s. But this is the era of cloud computing, and Google certainly has the reach and deep enough pockets to fund a revolution in desktop IT, in the same way that Microsoft did with the personal computer in the 1990s when Windows took off.

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