A Chromebook is a personal computer running Chrome OS as its operating system. The devices are designed to be used while connected to the Internet and supportapplications that reside on the Web, rather than traditional applications that reside on the machine itself. All the data is stored in the "cloud" accessed by an internet connection. A Chromebook is an example of a thin client.
The first Chromebooks for sale, by Acer Inc.and Samsung, were announced at the Google I/O conference in May 2011 and began shipping on June 15, 2011.Lenovo, Hewlett Packard and Google itself entered the market in early 2013. In addition to laptop models, a desktop version, called a Chromebox, was introduced in May 2012.
Chromebooks are primarily sold online, both directly from Google and from the company's retail partners. By 2012, schools had become the largest category of customer. That October, Google broadened its marketing strategy to include first-time computer users and households seeking an additional computer. Critical reaction to the device was initially skeptical, with some reviewers, like Joey Sneddon and David Pogue,unfavorably comparing the value propositionof Chromebooks with that of more fully featured laptops running the Microsoft Windows operating system. That complaint dissipated in reviews of machines from Acer and Samsung that were priced at $200 and $250, respectively.In February 2013, Google announced and began shipping theChromebook Pixel, a high-end machine priced at $1299.
In October 2012, Simon Phipps, writing inInfoWorld, said "the Chromebook line is probably the most successful Linux desktop/laptop computer we've seen to date". Measures of overall success are mixed. As of May 2013, the Samsung Series 3 Chromebook has led Amazon's list of best-selling laptops, a position it established when it launched in October 2012.But in April 2013, NetMarketShare, in its first week of monitoring worldwide usage of Chrome OS, reported that Chromebooks accounted for only 0.023% of Web traffic, which was just 0.7% of the traffic generated by Windows 8 PCs.
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