Google's strategy seems to be to get people to spend more time on the web so they can view and click on Google ads.
On the desktop, this means less time in native apps and more time in web apps. So they sell netbooks that don't support native apps.
On mobile devices, they just want people to use smartphones rather than dumb phones. They don't even really give a shit whether they're Androids or iPhones, except introducing a competitor to the iPhone grows the smartphone market in total and commoditizes them, so they give away Android. And for that strategy to work, Android has to feature-match iOS, which means native apps. And since iPad, Google now has to grow the tablet market and commoditize them, and since iOS can be adapted to tablets, so must Android.
Google's strategy seems to be to get people to spend more time on the web so they can view and click on Google ads.
Which makes the strategy of coupling ChromeOS to specific hardware devices even more odd. Why not just offer it up to people to use? Give it away a la Ubuntu and see if people wholesale switch up? Heck, if it worked decently on old machines I might be able to get another couple years out of some of the unused computers I have lying around.
That'd get the eyeballs using those machines on the web and hopefully clicking on Google ads.
This present strategy (Chrome books) is obviously not doing it and seemed odd from the start -- and smells like mission creep to me.
The kind of people who install different OS's on computers they already own are more likely to actually need to use native apps and more likely to spend lots of time on the internet anyway. ChromeOS is better targeted at a lower end of the market.
ChromeOS is better targeted at a lower end of the market.
Which I agree with. It's too bad that $500-600 isn't the lower end of the market anymore. I can get a usable notebook for <$300 these days. To really make a case, they need to hit the $200-$300 segment for it to make any kind of sense.
At $600 bucks I can get an actually fairly decent Windows 7 laptop.
"Google's strategy seems to be to get people to spend more time on the web so they can view and click on Google ads."
Only this is an idiotic long term strategy, if Google was to go even more full speed ahead to achieve this. Getting people to spend more time on the web takes a lot more money that can be generated per person via Google ads. Especially when they can spend that time on Facebook or any other Google competitor.
Google, for example, looses tons of money on Android just to "secure" their place among mobile platforms. This will not go well.
On the desktop, this means less time in native apps and more time in web apps. So they sell netbooks that don't support native apps.
On mobile devices, they just want people to use smartphones rather than dumb phones. They don't even really give a shit whether they're Androids or iPhones, except introducing a competitor to the iPhone grows the smartphone market in total and commoditizes them, so they give away Android. And for that strategy to work, Android has to feature-match iOS, which means native apps. And since iPad, Google now has to grow the tablet market and commoditize them, and since iOS can be adapted to tablets, so must Android.