In 2012,
Those statistics come courtesy of the NPD Group, which has released an illuminating report on computer sales trends within the commercial channel.
“The market for personal computing devices in commercial markets continues to shift and change,” said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis, NPD. “New products like Chromebooks, and reimagined items like Windows tablets, are now supplementing the revitalization that iPads started in personal computing devices. It is no accident that we are seeing the fruits of this change in the commercial markets as business and institutional buyers exploit the flexibility inherent in the new range of choices now open to them.”
Indeed, we've seen an attractive selection of Windows tablets emerge this year, and their share of unit sales has risen from 0.8% to 2.2% in this channel. But that minor uptick in visibility is overshadowed by
For those keeping score at home, Google's Chromebooks gobbled up that 21% within 11 months. That's definitely cause for concern in Redmond, and clearly a driver for Microsoft's new Scroogled campaign focusing on Chromebooks.
Keep in mind however that this report focuses solely on businesses and institutions, and only in America. We'll surely see a better snapshot of average consumer spending in late January 2014.
But why the dramatic surge in Chromebook popularity? I'm sure a dominant factor is price. Two of Amazon's top three selling laptops during the holiday season were -- you guessed it -- Chromebooks from Samsung and
Businesses and schools alike are realizing that they can use Google Docs for collaboration in lieu of Microsoft Office, and store their important data on the cloud without risking data loss in the event of a hardware malfunction. Plus, Google's Enterprise tools are making deployment easier, and for the most part ChromeOS is a hassle-free operating system. And one that's decidedly speedy with its stripped down, streamlined design.
All of this leads to lower expenses in IT departments.
Microsoft's argument against Chromebooks and ChromeOS is the machine's reliance on being connected to the internet, but you have to ask yourself: Aren't the majority of your day-to-day computing tasks being increasingly carried out online anyway? Additionally, the Chrome Web Store has a growing number of apps that are usable offline, including Google Docs and Gmail.
Chromebooks aren't for everyone, but there's no arguing the fact that Google has made a serious impact in 2013, and it'll be fascinating to watch how this battle spills over into average consumer habits.