The short answer: it's not directed towards you. It became blatantly obviously during Google IO that they're going after very specific markets: Education and Bu

The short answer: it's not directed towards you. It became blatantly obviously during Google IO that they're going after very specific markets: Education and Business private sector. No IT overhead, constant pushes of the latest security updates, and free hardware upgrades for as long as the line of products still exists with a low monthly price per machine. For the small fraction of use-cases that still need proprietary software there's virtualization. They're not going after the home sector here (they have Android phones and tablets handling that for them nicely). They're going for the throat with Microsoft's last dominance: schools and businesses. If they can start upsetting the decades-long lock-in that Microsoft has had in those giant areas, then Chromebooks have succeeded. (And before you ask, no the iPad isn't a suitable product for those areas. A proprietary cloud solution where a business doesn't control their own data is never going to fly. Also, while mobile Safari has made excellent strides, it's still not even close to a traditional browser.)