4 ms·

The bet Google is making is that the long tail of Win apps will be dwarfed by the longer tail of web apps. As always, the future will tell.

by mg74 13y ago

kenjackson 13y ago
Web apps run on PCs too. The long tail is Visual Studio, SPSS, Excel, Illustrator, Photoshop, Audyssey, Matlab, Emacs, Call of Duty, VLC, etc... Tablets are a great secondary device. I think Chromebooks are too bulky and not feature rich enough as a secondary device. And simply can't replace a laptop as a primary. And with virtually no price delta, I just don't see the story.
- dded 13y ago
  > And [Chromebooks] simply can't replace a laptop as a primary I now know two people with Chromebooks. Both also have an (older) desktop. By any reasonable measure, it's the Chromebooks which are the primary. It's almost as if the desktop provides an it's-there-if-I-really-need-it fallback in case any of the long-tail apps are needed, but both are finding them not needed. (Note that neither are office workers.) Both knew going in that the device would not run their PC software, so I think perhaps the correct messaging is out there. Still, two is a very small number, even in the personal anecdote space. So, we'll see.
- ceras 13y ago
  > And with virtually no price delta, I just don't see the story. What do you mean? I just bought a $199 Chromebook (Acer C720) with 9+ hours of battery life and weighing under 3lbs. It performs well for all day-to-day tasks (email, news/HN/reddit, Facebook, etc). I don't know of any well-performing Windows laptops at that price point, and Windows laptops come with the added complexity of using Windows: I like the minimal simplicity of ChromeOS (no pre-installed bloatware, no useless extra features complicating the UI, everything safely backed up in the cloud, and automatic updates). And my Chromebook is absolutely my primary device: I rarely touch my Windows 7 / Ubuntu (dual-booted) laptop.

The bet Google is making is that the long tail of Win apps will be dwarfed by the longer tail of web apps. As always, the future will tell.

by mg74 13y ago

The bet Google is making is that the long tail of Win apps will be dwarfed by the longer tail of web apps. As always, the future will tell.

kenjackson 13y ago

Web apps run on PCs too. The long tail is Visual Studio, SPSS, Excel, Illustrator, Photoshop, Audyssey, Matlab, Emacs, Call of Duty, VLC, etc... Tablets are a great secondary device. I think Chromebooks are too bulky and not feature rich enough as a secondary device. And simply can't replace a laptop as a primary. And with virtually no price delta, I just don't see the story.

dded 13y ago
> And [Chromebooks] simply can't replace a laptop as a primary I now know two people with Chromebooks. Both also have an (older) desktop. By any reasonable measure, it's the Chromebooks which are the primary. It's almost as if the desktop provides an it's-there-if-I-really-need-it fallback in case any of the long-tail apps are needed, but both are finding them not needed. (Note that neither are office workers.) Both knew going in that the device would not run their PC software, so I think perhaps the correct messaging is out there. Still, two is a very small number, even in the personal anecdote space. So, we'll see.
ceras 13y ago
> And with virtually no price delta, I just don't see the story. What do you mean? I just bought a $199 Chromebook (Acer C720) with 9+ hours of battery life and weighing under 3lbs. It performs well for all day-to-day tasks (email, news/HN/reddit, Facebook, etc). I don't know of any well-performing Windows laptops at that price point, and Windows laptops come with the added complexity of using Windows: I like the minimal simplicity of ChromeOS (no pre-installed bloatware, no useless extra features complicating the UI, everything safely backed up in the cloud, and automatic updates). And my Chromebook is absolutely my primary device: I rarely touch my Windows 7 / Ubuntu (dual-booted) laptop.