Chromebooks and Chromeboxes double, then quadruple market share inside first 6 months of 2014.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/2014-will-great-year-chrome-os/#!Xcmio
 



...... and it seems the younger the folks are the more likely they are NOT to buy a Windows solution to their computing needs .....

Intel and Google

Intel has a surprise coming when they approach Google while attempting to lock down a market (even a small growing one like Chromebooks/boxes).  

Google will not act to destroy anybody nor will they help you destroy anybody.

But Google will act in order to let you compete (if there is a barrier in their software anywhere that is stopping you in any fashion).

Google will not sue anybody nor will they restrict anybody.   Nor will they give you an advantage over anybody.

Google will give it away for free if it means more people are on line (and viewing Google ads and using free Google services that are laced with discrete ads in side bars, etc).

Google could hand Chromebooks/boxes over to Intel, or they could allow free competition and make Intel earn that market by being BETTER at it than anybody else.

Guess which is going to happen?



====================================



Google does have a bit of a long term quandary.   Their server farms really do hold up the computing power end of the current crop of tiny "insufficient processor" Chromebook/boxes and as "Chromebooks as a class" get numerically more popular that will place more of a load on Google's server farm system.

Microsoft is falling down on the OS job lately, and MS is now making some noises like they are perhaps going to depart the main OS market completely and just sell pay me yearly "services" like Office 360.   Some of this is the whole processor world (including Intel) slowly revolving out from beneath them, literally not even considering their "x86 needs" for very much any more at all (and this includes Intel).

So, Google may wind up supplying a WHOLE LOT MORE of their computing OS products out in the future.  

This presents a potential "growth, too much" problem for Google, way out there in the future.   Google ChromeOS products are supported by Google owned net-based server farm hardware, ChromeOS won't work without it.

Right now Google caps the life of a Chrome OS product at 5 years, beyond that they say technological change in the web itself will make the older ChromeOS products less useful and harder to support.   Plus, since the original product was $200-$300 and cheaply constructed so folks could tend to think of it as "disposable" at the end of 5 years.  

Google certainly seems to think so.   They back this thought by the current average service life of a MS laptop being 3-4 years, on average.


Next item to consider long term is that Google is slowly losing its predominant position as "King of Ads" world-wide.   Badu has now taken over the orient, and other, more local ad services are making inroads into Google's profitability apart from the USA.   None of these guys is supporting anything, much less for free.

So, Chromebooks/boxes are riding on top of Google's web server farms world wide for free right now, but can this continue forever?

Yes, for just as long as using the built in Google services very gently results in enough additional ad revenue for Google to pay for it.  

The Chromebook business use model and the Chromebook educational model become more dubious revenue-wise, since worker bees don't do much with their viewed ads nor do the school children, actually.

So, eventually you may have to load a replacement OS on your ChromeOS machine's hardware, so please do make sure you have enough processor and systems memory and make provisions for some sort in-device or add-on storage and get good I/O ports and such when you go to buy your Chromebook or box.   Trusting wifi and bluetooth to do everything might not work for you way out into the future. 

If it is spec'd so it won't directly support Ubuntu, then don't buy it.

Right now, this "replacement OS on down the road" planning would lead you to prefer an Intel processor in your Chromebook over an ARM processor.   And it would lead you to want a LAN jack and a few USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 ports on the device (specifically, the sorts that can attach to a USB hub device).





Hey, it is just one of them facts .....   sorry.        


Look to see Tizen OS coming into play on low end laptops as well, as being pushed on laptops by Samsung and Intel (yup, it's out there right now at the big shows already in development laptops from both Intel and Samsung).   Windowing multi-user Android (oriental versions) will show up soon as well.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=194362

Linux - Asus/HP ChromeBox EZ Setup

Since both the original Asus unit and the very newest HP Chromebox both directly use the Google reference board design and have the same software set up they can use the same instructions for how to load Ubuntu or other Linux operating systems.

Since Google enforces STANDARDS in the Chrome world, you get stability and ease of migration down the road if/when you need to migrate to open source for whatever reason.

Also note:    When Google releases Android L and the Chrome devices pick up the ability to run all of Android apps inside Chrome windows, then you will get an automatic Google update to your machine that will include this new functionality.

With being inside a Google Chrome Window begin being the desired place to be, expect Ubuntu (or Libre Office & various Linux softwares) to shortly be able to run inside one of those Chrome windows.

Within 2-3 years, a grumpy reluctant MS Office will have to be there as well, or else MS will be agreeing to fade away into obscurity by their own choices.    

Since Office now runs on Apple iOS on both laptops and tablets it seems that MS Office can make itself subsidiary to other OS systems when they really want to.

Samsung builds specific Octacore chipsets just for Chromebooks

Samsung is uncorking two specific chipsets solely built to go into a Chromebook/chromebox for this Christmas.

Exynos 5480 is the first of the pair, an Octacore A7/A15 variant that is tuned specifically for the Chromebook space.  Clock speeds are maximized, memory space is fast bus 3 gig min, 8 gig max and it uses the newest fastest memory style.   On chip I/0 has been tweeked a bit to specifically include the most modern USB C version 3.1 connector, a standard LAN jack and to have increased range most excellent wifi and blue tooth connectivity.    Left off the chip will be the cell phone radio components, the GPS and other cell phone type items.

The second of the pair will be an unnamed 20nm Exynos 5433 Octacore 64 bit A53/A57 variant, not yet branded, with the same Chromebook optimized tweeks as the Exynos 5480.  

Probably call it the Exynos 5483 .... who knows?    It is Samsung, they will call it something Samsungish and it will likely outperform Intel and their current Chrome chipsets as well.


What does this all really mean?


Samsung sees Chromebooks as a rapidly growing worldwide market that is going to catch some really nice, well integrated Google Android App tricks soon, opening it up to be an even larger general purpose competitor to MS's Windows OS systems and Apple's iOS systems.  

Samsung sees a new Samsung phone tying into this new Android app happy "internet of things" computing world, so you can get all your phone notifications right on your Samsung Chromebook (along with a few other neat Googlish/Samsungish tricks).   Getting within 3 feet of you Chromebook with your Samsung phone will unlock it, give it your password and get it all warmed up and ready for you before you even finish sitting down.

Schools have accepted Chromebooks completely now, greatly curtailing the sales of iOS and Windows machines into the education sector.

Business and Consumer acceptance of Chromebooks and Chromeboxes are burgeoning, currently at the 6x level to last year (5.2 million sold so far this year) with an even greater higher peak point predicted to come at the end of  this Christmas season.

Tegra K1 and Samsung Octacore are taking Chromebooks very seriously right now and are offering chipsets with greatly increased run time and faster throughput (at better graphics levels) than the current crop of generic Intel processors can do.

Intel is expected to eventually respond with more optimized, "improved" Intel Chromebook chipsets, just as soon as they are able to pluck thumb from butt and go do it.

Right now they are being distracted by Microsoft who is trying desperately to put together a Bingbook and a Bingbox device so as to not be drown out totally in the tsunami wave of Chromebooks breaking over the top of their head this Christmas season.  

"Wintel" is desperately calling on the special red bat-phone and Intel must answer the call .....

Intel may turn around when done from the Wintel distractions and find themselves no longer in the Chromebook leadership position that unexpectedly fell into their lap this summer.  

Chrome space is going to evolve and move quickly, as it is being interlinked with Android space by Google and we all know the rapid rate at which that evolves.

Tegra K1 and Exynos 5433/5480/5483? actively optimizing chipsets for Chromespace (all done at the 20nm changeover point) is ominous for Intel -- since Intel hasn't been able to do anything of late except re-label their existing 22nm chipsets for the entire last two calender years .....

Intel's current crop of stuff isn't very good as mobile chipsets go, so they had gone after the Chromebooks as something they could succeed at with what they had on hand.

Now the big phone boys have decided to go actively play in Chromespace too .....  and they play harder and much quicker than Intel has been able to handle to date.


       


Watch out Intel, the phone boys are swinging strong performing 64 bit ARM Chromespace chipsets at you that are Chromebook optimized and far more energy efficient than your very best mobile or laptop chipsets.

Remember, your Core i3 and Core i5 chipsets are currently in play in Chromespace at this time, so new ARM developments there will involve all your lower end laptop chipsets too.

             

Jest guess what can mebbe happen next ????????

Windows 9 is coming out soon and it will supposedly run on these exact same new ARM chipsets.  

The ARM based Chromespace vendors will already have ARM laptop lines set up and running that could be "windowized" very quickly if Win 9 turns out to actually be something that is actually customer desirable.

Or you guys at Wintel could mebbe try to close ranks again and try to go all x86 proprietary on us again --- which will be even more Chromebook food and may prompt even more rapid changes to ARM based Chrome/Android integration.

Or mebbe your buddy MS will simply screw it all up badly again -- Lord knows they know how to do that too.



PS    Intel did answer the red bat-phone and Intel said "I'm busy right now making Chromebooks and Chromeboxes and my energy efficient chipsets are all optimized for Android calls right now -- hey, MS, weren't you supposed to be able to run on an ARM chipset by now anyway?

Unexpected consequence of the Chromebox tsunami surge -- Chromeboxes are killing off all demand for ARM demo boards as they all now all fall inside the same price range.    

Why mess with a demo board when you can just AMAZON direct ship the whole thing to you completely pre-digested ???

Folks like Odroid are discontinuing all production and frantically selling off their existing stocks as the big phone guys are now getting into the Chromebox business using the same chips that Odroid has been building their demo boards with.  

The difference in what you can now get for your money means nobody is going to buy an Odroid demo board any more, ever again.


  $179, but you have to pay more for a flash drive and a power supply and for the OS simm card.

   or

  $179 and it is a complete mouse and keyboard kit with all memory and power supply and OS included.

  ....duh, i think I'll pick the one I have to put everything together myself and program it and tweek just about everything just to get it to work and do anything at all ......

Glad you like it, here is the link for purchasing the $179 white all in one kit.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Chromebox-Desktop-Bundle-White/dp/B00LB11JYS

Now, since the Chromebook is taking off good to the point chipsets are being customized just for that particular use, expect some even mightier ARM processors to become available that offer superior battery life.   Expect Intel to eventually drop a new one for the Chromebox that is more powerful (but not as careful with battery life since it runs off a cord all the time anyway).

Remember, you can buy the Chromebox by itself right now for $149.99 if you have your own keyboard and mouse that you like.    You get to pick your color on the separate box by itself.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Chromebox-CB1-014-Desktop-White/dp/B00KD5RUPA/ref=sr...

Please be aware that the actual price of components for these units are being subsidized by Intel as part of their grand "loss leader price support" plan -- when the subsidy dies off the price will jump $60 or more a unit overnight.

Get them while Intel is still being stupid, in other words .....

For a laptop style Chromebook, the Acer 13 Tegra K1 unit looks very very good right now -- similar price to the Intel based units gets you double the run life between battery charges.

Why the AMD Mullens chipset?

FACT:  all of Intel's current low energy chipsets are currently somewhat optimized for ARM style system calls and Android now, not Microsoft or "pure" x86.   

MS was on board with this done deal Intel processor change way back when it happened, but MS internal has kinda forgot again about their promise "to program Win 8.1 to run well on ARM".    Optimized to run well on ARM is a lot different than "can run on ARM" -- optimization means it runs as fast or faster, as good or better on ARM than x86 .....

Mebbe it was slated internally for "doing ARM really well" in Win 9 .....  or did you really just quietly decide internally right along to be right proper proprietary x86 assholes all over again, MS, and leave it totally optimized for x86?    Appears so, anyway.

If so, we hope you like them AMD chipsets, MS, because that "Intel totally tuned for x86 on any low end stuff" ship sailed quite a while ago.

So, Intel is really busy right now building up a whole lot of Chromebooks and Chromeboxes with their "energy efficient chipsets" and so Intel didn't choose to give any of them to MS for free to go into your Microsoft low end wonder machine.  

Intel also didn't want to take part in any "fall flat on your face trying to compete against Chrome with Win 8.1" episode as Intel understands the Chrome World pretty well by now and they sense what the probable outcome of that would be already.

Intel also makes some money putting their chipsets into Chromebooks and Chromeboxes ......  and Intel needs to make some money out of something right now.

(Intel stockholders are getting really really pissed at Intel management again for throwing their money away by the dump truck load on Mobile)

AMD however was willing to play "loss leader" this time in this extreme low cost MS PR space and they have got this new Mullens SOC sitting around that hasn't been burning up the world lately.  

As a matter of fact Mullens first foray in a HP Pavilion 10" netbook looking thingie got 100% reviewer panned for very poor battery life (which had more to do with HP's dumb choices to use a small battery size and an energy eating constantly spinning platter hard drive to go along with with the Mullens SOC).

This 14" HP Steam Machine is going to be swinging an energy eating 14" screen and a sub-normal sized battery, so look to see "sub-average" battery life out of the $199 Steam Machine as it is currently configured.  
Microsoft should listen to AMD and put a decent sized battery in the device -- the egg on face warning has been given already by AMD.

The Mullens SOC got good reviews for graphics and above average for CPU performance.    
Mullins has a nifty turbo mode that will 1.8x the CPU speed during heavy demand use and a temp sensor that will cut it all back when things heat up past skin warm as temperature measured on the outside of the case.   A simplistic form of the Intel energy nanny chip in other words.

The AMD Mullins SOC itself is rather hardy and rigorous device, it can heat up to 220+^oF during turbo mode and stay right on up there temperature-wise without taking any harm, and believe me that superspeed turbo mode will run it right on up there if you start doing something really demanding on a long term basis.  

Hey, you go say "it is a PC" and folks will go do PC things with it, you know ..... like play PC games on it.

The Mullins SOC can take the heat, but the operator holding it on his lap likely cannot.   (neither can the battery life, really -- it takes lots of power to make all that heat you know)

Thus the operator's skin sensibilities becomes the limiting factor in this turbo speed game -- so the Mullins system has a "skin sensor" mounted on the case itself that actually controls the turbo mode on these AMD Mullins units.    

Folks will likely be quite pleased with the unit's CPU/GPU performance, if HP will just put enough battery in the case to drive it for a long enough use life.   And remember to put you a right goodly sized large aluminum heat spreader sheet metal plate between the motherboard and the user's lap for good operator comfort ..... lots of vent slots in the bottom of the case will help cool the plate off too.

What?    You had planned on just re-using the existing HP 14 Chromebook's super thin case?

For a full on PC gaming experience with a turbo style heat'm up chipset ???

                                                                       


So, after fixing all these little niggles  --- success finally depends on the base OS functionality.    Is the OS energy efficient?   Is it quick and responsive?   Is it easy and intuitive to use?

Microsoft needs to spend the money to get enough battery into the Stream Machine to at least get "average" battery life and they need to REALLY AVOID any unpleasant OS experience right out of the box.  

No banner ads or other Bingish bullshite.

This is it -- Microsoft's big comeback play is happening soon.   This is also AMD's big comeback play as well.   Both have a lot riding on the Stream Machine as both are underdogs trying to stage a comeback.

Direct comparisons to Intel and ChromeOS will be forthcoming instantly, since HP currently makes an identical 14" Chromebook (which is desirable enough to command an extra $100 in price point right now).

A User Test Group of HP, Microsoft and AMD people need to sit down with their prototype Mullens machine and the Chromebook 14 that is already shipping and figure out exactly what they have to do to make the Stream machine BETTER than the Chromebook right out of the gate.

Since MS and AMD are blowing money out their butts for a comeback, they should blow a little more money and time to make sure they REALLY REALLY GET that big comeback.

Using Win 8.1 isn't an option, it is a no-show from the get-go -- don't bother even thinking about it.    You were stupid to even mention it in the Steam Machine release promo materials posted on the HP product page.

You have Win 9 prototype software that you could polish up and use.   You could even call it StreamOS and tout it as an improvement .....

MS .... if Win 9 can't be polished and tweeked to make up a real win on the Stream Machine, then you are dead in the water anyway .... MS





Or you can go be all Microsoft The Stupid again and go build a fall on your face flop again, just like that little 8" tablet thingie that you just went and built 20,000 of them, then you looked at them, then you realized MS Office wouldn't fit at all on the 8" screen and so you had to go scrap all 20,000 of them the week before the big introduction foo-rah, all this taking place just a few months ago .....


===============================


PS  The HP Stream Machine product page just got yanked right off the web after being up for over a week  .....  there is apparently some Streaming rethink going on at MS/AMD/HP.    

Finally got that Stream Machine prototype run built, huh?    Sorta sucked compared to that exact same 14 model of Chromebook, didn't it?




Try try try try try try try try try try try try try try try try try try again ......

Intel has been funding the entry of their chipsets into the mobile world for over 3 years now.   They have actually gotten some traction finally, in the Chrome world.

They have lost BILLIONS and tens of BILLIONS of dollars of money earned off of other products so they could bribe, bully and buy their way into the mobile industry where their processors really do not fit very well at all.    For the last 2 years these processors really haven't changed very much either (but the energy nanny chipsets have been improved greatly).    

In Chrome, they finally have something their processors do fairly well at.

Now they are proposing General American Programming STANDARDS based off their semi-ARM, semi-x86 not integrated at all style of Intel BS -- you can remember when I predicted this classic Intel behavior would eventually occur.  

Because there currently are no published applications programming standards in Chrome or in mobile, Intel is getting listened to more than they should be.   Remember, an Intel general standard leads to Intel "owning" that market and eventually that intellectual property down the road a piece.  

It is a trick they learned from Bill Gates and MS.

Google needs to squash any Intel attempts at pushing a Intel processor based set of programming standards for the Chrome world -- and Google needs to actively expedite some ARM competition into that realm or else they will quite possibly lose control of what they have created to Intel.  

ARM needs to bring forth their next generation of ARM processors, the ones that can compete with Intel at laptop and desktop levels.    ARM needs to back up these chipset designs with Linaro I/O interface and VERY FIRM PROGRAMMING STANDARDS that keep all the orientals from going batshit crazy all over the place doing it every strange which way (something that has somewhat crippled ARM's upstream advancement so far) ....   Sad thing is the orientals won't pay any attention to these standards, except to break them if it is any form of market advantage for them to do so.


============================


The digital divide between the producing countries that make and buy all the goodies and the USA who now buys the wee little minority of these goodies is becoming VERY pronounced right now.

What is made in S. Korea and China for local use is VERY different from what HP or Asus or Acer or Lenovo sells through Amazon or Best Buy or Wally.    The newest & best stuff varies the most, as the Far East really gives a flip about American standards any more.

Google, MS and Intel are currently politically "greatly frowned upon" in China by the Chinese government -- and Chinese natural stuff is becoming more and more available here in the USA.    

Expect it to be different -- it is.

Stuff costs a whole quantum leap less money bought direct from China and in many cases if you want to buy the raw state of the art you have to buy Chinese directly as they sell it in their home market first and only export it once demand is totally satisfied or else the new one has just come out.

When Xiaomi hits the US market, expect it to be Xiaomi all the way -- it works well, it has very similar features but it isn't Google at all.   It costs less than half as much, too.

Expect Samsung to become more different over time as well.   Samsung sells world-wide and the majority of their customers live in the Far East.


Change, she comes ......