Well, I think the first chapter in the Chrome Wars is about over .... very soon MS and/or Google are going to drop new OS products on the market that will supersede this 2012-2015 conflict with a new one that will match up with the new crowd of super-processors being released for 2016.
Not that ChromeOS itself will disappear, no I think Chrome might be combined with other things and perhaps be called something else but I do believe the light fast net-based format and function of ChromeOS will survive ongoing.
The net is becoming pervasive and so is public Wifi as a means of getting on the web.
I carry a web based Wifi based combo phone now and I suspect my next desktop hardware might indeed be based upon my then current cell phone (next time I buy a cell phone anyway).
So, where are we right now -- at the end strokes of the traditional Chromewars.Google has been distracted and tied up in EU court over "Google taking over the world" thanks to MS's behind the scenes maneuvering. This is intended to forestall any new unified Google OS as that would be seen as more "taking over the world" again -- meanwhile MS has "protected" their necessary needed time to finish up Win10
finally.
(I mean really,
Win9 is only 3 years late at this point and it has gone through two whole number/name changes without ever hitting reality).
MS is choking on itself, piling up more and more and more processor and memory intensive features into the Win10 PC release for this late Summer (assuming it actually does go real at that point in time) .....
..... while Intel is choking on itself trying to make a faster/cheaper chipset to move the new MS massive behemoth "quickly and cheaply". Intel is not making sufficient progress on this goal right now and Intel has Apple, MS and lots of other different customers strongly irritated with Intel at the moment because of all the 14nm screw ups and delays.
Chromebooks are still doing well, sitting at 15% of all laptop sales and the Chromebook raw quantity number is still doubling every year or fairly close to it, and the Chromebook phenomena is now moving on out into all the foreign marketplaces driven by the same things that made it so successful in America.
Yep, I think 2015's Chromebook "doubling" will HURT Microsoft, a lot .... that would be a significant market share loss for MS since recent history says those that go Chromebook tend to not come back to MS, ever.
The current Chrome Wars price point is at $149 with some plans leaking out to take it down to $129 if that becomes necessary. That is if MS ever actually makes it all the way down to $149 point in the first place -- they haven't really gotten all the way down to $149 yet you know .....
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So, how happy are people with Chromebooks vs MS Windows? Currently, I mean. Right now. Reality speak. Factually.http://au.pcmag.com/feature/28623/readers-choice-awards-2015-laptops-and-desk... What I find interesting that the items that the people like most about Chromebooks will not be changed at all by the Win10 roll out -- indeed the "items they like" may get exaggerated some more by MS's ongoing flaws by the time the first "pay me" bill for Win10 hits the public's pocketbooks and the "I told you so" outrage starts.
You see, MS is playing a game right now, they are going to push Win10 "for free" just as hard as they can in 2015-16 to try to gain back market share that they have lost in the various world markets -- then later on the "pay me" bill will eventually be presented in the next version, once the public is fully hooked on Win10 and "can't live without it" all over again.
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Here is my prediction ..... MS is seen as a desktop/laptop operating system. Cell phones are getting ready to take over a large chunk of that desktop real estate going forward into the future. Right now MS only owns right at 3%-4% of that cell phone market share.
MS might win in desktop, but desktop is going to shrink to be an incidental marketplace fairly soon, occupied only by CAD and other forms of workstations in a work a day world. Yeah, maybe an AAA game or two, gotta leave room for that you know.
But desktop PC will shrink to wind up being a 5%-8% of total computing within 4 years, unless Win 10 is fantastically successful and turns the trend completely around.People will carry cell phones in their purses and pockets that can light a screen when they are sitting at home, either cordlessly or from a docked connection (ya still gotta charge the thing, right?).
What that particular OS is going to be called is still yet to be determined.
..... Apple iOS and Android are the two most likely brand names right now, really. Once they light your big screen you might call them OSx and ChromeOS since they will likely be able to morph to fit the environment on the fly.And yes, MS will be there too, at a much smaller percentage.
Face it, people currently do not prefer MS Phone over Apple or Android phones right now and I can't see that preference changing radically in the short term future.
And I also don't see people rushing to throw away old desktop PC hardware at the moment either --
Desktop Linux has jumped from 1.4% to over 3% of the total existing population of x86 machines which is a pretty significant pick up in Linux only boot sectors.
(not dual boot machines either, as they are reported as Windows units -- 3% now are pure Linux machines)