The Chromebook Pixel 2 is absolutely gorgeous, but it still comes with a prohibitively small SSD. They need to develop their own super-robust and sexy Linux distro and drop the ChromeOS nonsense.
I just can't figure out why they aren't doing this.
There could be many reasons. Off the top of my head:
* Google is not a devices company (disregarding recent forays into the the high end smartphone market), but a services company. It's not in their DNA to this, and it doesn't fit their (current) business model. The don't have the required hardware competences, nor the required sales or distribution organisations.
* Even if Google had the required competences to do this, it's highly doubtful that it's a worthwhile pursuit. The "pro" market is not big, its probably not growing, and the competition is fierce. To the extend that Apple neglects this market, its probably because the ROI is too low. To make hardware that seriously challenges Apple (and other PC manufacturers) requires large investments.
* It doesn't support Google's other businesses. Google is already present on all the existing platforms. They are not going to sell more ads doing this.
Not sure I agree with that, when we're teaching everybody and their grandparents how to program, in order to compete in the "new economy."
Doubly-so for developing countries.
I would hope that the proportion of developers in the world should be increasing.
Even if it should prove true that the proportion of high end users is expanding relative to the entire market, it will still just be a bigger slice of a smaller pie. The PC market has been declining for quite some time. That doesn't mean that there will not still be lucrative niches within that market, but does Google really strike you as a company that would or should go for a niche in a contracting market?
That would be great, but I don't think they have the expertise in-house for that right now -- they'd have to ramp up and that's a slow process.