Chromebook: Are You Really Ready to Marry Google?

CIO — Do you want to marry Google (GOOG), as a computing partner that is? If you do, the new Chromebook might make sense. If not, don't even think about buying one when they go on sale in a few weeks.

A Chromebook is sort of a netbook based on Google's Chrome operating system. Like any laptop-like device, it has a screen, a keyboard and a trackpad. But that's where the similarities to the laptops or netbooks you've seen end.

The Chromebook could be named the Cloudbook, because it's designed to work exclusively online, with storage and applications on Google's servers in the cloud. Indeed, it has no local storage (unless you count a small solid state drive used to cache work in progress), no optical drives and few connectors for peripherals.

Because the Chromebook has a small operating system, and few, if any, drivers to load, it boots in less than 10 seconds and wakes up almost immediately if you've put it to sleep. And like a netbook, the first two commercial versions of the Chromebook are light (between three and four pounds), claim excellent battery life—six to eight hours— and are priced well below $500.

But a Chromebook is not just another small laptop. It's a whole different way to go about your daily computing chores.

Want to work offline, on an airplane, for example, or when the Internet isn't accessible for other reasons? You can't. As Scott MeNeely said famously and prematurely some years ago, "The network is the computer." It wasn't true then, but if you're a Chromebook user, it is.

You do pretty much everything from the built in Chrome browser. When you turn on the machine, you log into your Google account, and all of your Google stuff, gmail, docs, Google apps, calendar, contacts, and so on, are right there.

Being cloud-based as some significant advantages—and some potentially deal-breaking disadvantages.

On the positive side, most of the apps you'll use are free. No more spending hundreds of dollars on software from Microsoft (MSFT), Adobe (ADBE) and Symantec (SYMC). That's right; no Symantec or anybody else's anti-virus software. Since all of your data and applications are in the cloud, security happens on the server level, not on your device.

Similarly, if you lose your Chromebook, you haven't lost your stuff. It's all right where you left it, ready to be accessed from another Chromebook or any other computing device you might own.

Not having lots of local applications means that support costs for business are likely going to be much lower than they are in conventional environments. Backups, for example, won't be needed, since users will store their stuff in the cloud.

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