Microsoft Offers Office Online apps via Chrome Web Store
computerworld.com
computerworld.com
In this sense, their Office monopoly, which is not as reliant on third-party add-ins or platform openness, and is far more based on product superiority, is more important for them to preserve. Office gives them a strong chance at dominance in business cloud services. Since they are far ahead of competitors at this point, they want to win it as quickly as possible before competitors catch up. This has nothing to do with Microsoft conceding anything - it's simply that Office is far too important to be tied to Windows.
In the same way a supertanker turning with a turn radius of 5 miles is "nimble." Microsoft is a big place with a lot of entrenched products, processes, and policies. Being able to change those to enable shipping this product is 'nimble.' Continuing to not adapt to the way to the way the world is changing would be "non nimble."
Personally I think it shows a lot of growth on Microsoft's part, and that is a good thing.
It's awful. Forget about accelerated graphics from that nice chip - the drivers are proprietary. Oh, and so are the DSP drivers, so no HD decoding. Enjoy pressing Ctl-D every boot; don't mis-type or you'll wipe the drive. The keyboard lacks essentials such as "home", "end", and "delete". The Crouton OS and ChromeOS get into fights sometimes. HDMI is a crapshoot. I never did get VLC to stream the webcam. The finish is about as durable as whitewash. And so on.
If you're a developer reading this thread and considering buying a Chromebook because it looks like a nice machine for the price, PLEASE don't. Do yourself a favor and buy a used thin 'n' light business-class laptop from 2006-8. You'll take a medium hit on battery life and weight, but you will get a comfortable, well-designed, durable, powerful machine for your money.
I agree with your recommendation though, wait and get the Samsung 2 if you want ARM, or any of the other x86 Chromebooks.
EDIT: And you don't need to type Ctrl-D, it just makes it boot quicker when the bootloader is unlocked
That stuff is what "work" means to me, so my (Acer) chromebook is a pretty decent work machine. For bigger stuff I break out the 17" System76 but for travel I take the chromebook.
I know it's limited compared to the full x86 version (I've only played with one briefly), but I suspect it fills a gap that the Chromebook can't for people who aren't comfortable using "office" web apps.
I have a 32 GB Surface RT. Here are some of its many selling points:
1. Memory card slot to upgrade storage to 96 GB
2. USB port that can be used to connect and charge devices
3. 10.6" touch screen
4. Cost only $179
5. Runs full version of Microsoft Office 2013
6. Runs full version of OneNote which is a must-have app
7. Unbelievably good Type keyboard with magnetic locks
8. Built-in standard Windows utilities (ex: RDP client)
9. Built-in kickstand
10. Tons of apps/games
11. Multiple user profiles on one device
I have a 64 GB iPad Retina as well. My three kids actually fight over the Surface and the loser is left with the iPad.
The number of use cases that can't be performed adequately (and in some cases - performed better) in a web app is shrinking and will continue to do so. The native to web app gap is shrinking, especially on non-mobile devices where memory and CPU are less constrained.
For these, a remaining reason to buy windows is "what if I need x." WIndows does everything chromes does, plus some other stuff so its alway going to win that argument. Office online is another step to making that argument moot.
I'm not sure that Google is actively targeting workplaces with chrome, but I wouldn't be surprised to some workplace shift.
ATM, I think there are a lot of users that use 80% web, 10% native apps with decent web based alternatives and 10% irreplaceable native. Since IT departments know what's installed on machines, they'll know for sure if/when a switch is possible.
Offers Office Online apps via Chrome Web Store to Chrome and Chrome OS
With the further qualification:
The move was largely symbolic: The Office Online apps have long been able to run within virtually any browser, including Chrome, the foundation of Chrome OS.
But by packaging the apps in .crx format and submitting them to the automated review run by Google, and thus publishing them to the Chrome Web Store, Microsoft put its Office Online in front of Chrome and Chrome OS users and in a place they've been trained to look for Web apps.
I think its fair to conclude that Microsoft has conceded something -- but not necessarily about Chromebooks' "worthiness", per se.
I think its fair to conclude that Microsoft has conceded that tieing the rest of the company to live and die based on the strength of the Windows OS and brand isn't good long-term strategy -- and this is just one of many signs (rebranding Azure from "Windows Azure" to "Microsoft Azure" is another.)
The HN guidelines call for not rewriting titles except when they are misleading or linkbait.
Edit: the article is pretty lame too. Is this a significant announcement? If it is, can someone suggest a better url? If it isn't, we may tag it as fluff.
http://blogs.office.com/2014/04/14/more-office-online-commen...
The tech press is good at camouflaging fluff, though, and this is one thing dragging down the quality of the front page. I believe a solution may be for HN to focus more on primary sources. We're going to be asking the community for help with this.
My brother got a chrome pixel at Google I/O and he loves it. The hardware is beautiful. The interface is simple. The speed and ease of use is really unparalleled. The downside is by far the most important - the functionality is very limited due to the limited App space.
That and if touch is enabled things like Gmail like to add lots of padding around stuff regardless of if you're going to use the touch at all.
Frankly, I found the touch utterly useless, especially since the touchpad is so good.
I think for many users the Chromebook does fine, and I think for many others the Chromebook is too limiting. I would personally be very happy if, say, Chrome OS was built as a dual-boot solution for Microsoft Surface. Chrome for general case, and an escape hatch to Windows for games or whatever. A VM solution hosted in Windows would also work here.
However, my last attempt at running Chrome OS in a VM indicated that the open-source version of Chrome OS (at least as downloaded by VMWare) was running at a significant lag behind what's being pushed to Chromebooks right now, so I stopped investigating it any further.
I agree with you on the state thing. The problems we have (hopefully temporary) are the number of choices of where to store our state are inadequate (i.e. too many hosted in the US) and we're living with the layers of crap that is the modern web. The idealist in me would prefer a clean slate completely, but the pragmatist knows they're approaching this in the only way the idea will get traction.
I guess if you really have a thing for aluminium then the case is nice enough, but I find it extremely uncomfortable to use at times (the sharp edges have a tendency to bite into my wrists if I am not careful to keep my wrists elevated.)
It's an interesting tradeoff. You will obviously not be putting a first person shooter game on one of these, or installing massive software stacks, but I don't really want that from a ultrabook anyway. I'm overjoyed with mine (I have the cheap Toshiba, not the Pixel). If I lose or break it who cares, I'll buy another. Meanwhile I have a portable ultrabook that I can develop on, keep up to date with the office, or just take to bed to do some light browsing. It's utterly fantastic in a 'less is more' kind of way.
edit: so far I am only using the Dropbox stuff with the chromebook - I do not know if can use BitTorrent Sync from it, and I may have to revise that part of my workflow.