IDC: Hardware Components Will be Pricey for Chrome OS
Posted on 12. Mar, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey in News
Owing to the notion that a Chrome OS netbook will require specialized hardware from computer manufacturers, Bob O’Donnell of IDC believes that such a device will actually be just as expensive as netbooks that run on Windows. O’Donnell, who is vice president of clients and displays, seems to take a view that perhaps the technology is not quite ready for public consumption.
“PC OEMs say the hardware requirements—still under NDA–will make the systems actually more expensive than a Windows device, yet they don’t have anywhere near the applications support,” O’Donnell said. He was talking up this point while at Directions 2010, which is an economic conference that is held in Reno, Nevada. ”Clamshell systems need Windows or Mac OS because if a system looks like a notebook people want it to act like one,” he said.
IDC does a lot of research, and they know what they are talking about. However, we have already seen devices that are running Chrome OS that don’t cost that much – the Freescale 7″ tablet that was shown off a few weeks ago is expected to go for only $200. And a quick look at the Chromium site shows that manufacturers and developers have successfully tested a Asus Eee PC 1005HA, which retails for around $300.
Now, it is possible that in order to offer users the best user experience possible Google is making some heavy handed demands for these devices to be able to quickly boot and get users where they need to be – right on the web. Since the experience is so important, I would not be surprised by that. But the reality is that they are going to need to balance this with a price point that makes it possible to compete in a totally new class of cheap and lightweight computing device.
Even Chrome OS Engineering Director Matthew Papakipos said in an interview last November that the goal of the operating system was going to be for something cheaper than traditional netbook fare.
It certainly explains why we are only seeing devices from manufacturers with Android on them, because perhaps the right mix of hardware and software just has not been pinpointed just yet.
