“That’s why we (we being Google) are marking Cromebooks down to the low low LOW price of $299! $299?! Are we insane?! Possibly! Or perhaps we just misjudged the market for a device that is more or less entirely built around a browser.”
Yeah, it wouldn’t make a very good TV commercial, would it? Nonetheless, Google is cutting the price of the device (manufactured by Acer and Samsung) by 50 bucks in time for the holidays. CNET thinks connectivity might be part of the reason the Chromebook isn’t selling:
the simplicity comes at a cost. Users store photos, videos and documents on the Web rather than the device. That requires a persistent Web connection to get most tasks done. But ubiquitous Web connectivity is not yet prevalent, something that has seemingly discouraged customers.
I think the app economy has something to do with it as well. True, you can get Angry Birds as a Chrome app, you’re reminded of this every time you open a browser tab in Chrome, but despite Google’s best wishes, maybe we don’t want to do all of our computing in a browser window.
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