Microsoft might have more reason to be scared of Chromebooks these days. While the software giant was spooked by Google’s low-cost laptops three years ago, they’ve mostly only been selling well to schools. That appears to have changed over the past year. Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US last year, and now they appear to be contributing to overall PC market growth.
IDC claims the PC market is “up slightly,” recording its first growth in five years. It’s a tiny growth of just 0.6 percent, but it’s a flattening of the market that Microsoft and its PC maker partners have been looking for after years of decline. While percentage growth looks good on paper, it doesn’t always tell the whole story.
Over at Gartner, another market research firm that tracks PC sales, the story is a little different. Gartner claims PC shipments declined 2.4 percent in the recent quarter. There’s a good reason for the disparity between IDC and Gartner’s figures, and it involves Chromebooks. IDC's data includes Chromebooks and excludes Windows tablets, even machines with a detachable keyboard like the Surface Pro. Gartner counts Windows-based tablets as PCs and excludes Chromebooks or any non-Windows-based tablets.
Considering that 2-in-1's like the Surface were being touted as a sales success not that long ago, it's something of a surprise that adding their sales numbers to those of desktop and laptop PCs isn't enough to reverse the PC sales slump; apparently 2-in-1's are only selling well when compared to standalone tablets, which continue to slip.
It's also a surprise that Chromebook sales are suddenly booming, in spite of the fact that almost nobody in the tech press has paid Chromebooks any significant amount of attention until five minutes ago -- Gartner still refuses to track them as PCs. I'll admit to being quietly surprised to learn, a few months ago, that Chromebooks were winning the education market, and I'm gobsmacked to learn that they're now catching on with businesses, too, according to The Verge piece:
Without IDC providing the exact split of Chromebooks sold vs. Windows- and macOS-based machines, it’s impossible to know exactly how well Google’s low-cost laptops are selling. However, IDC also claims that Chromebooks are doing well with businesses. The US commercial PC market “came out strong mostly backed by growth of Chromebooks,” says IDC. Gartner has no opinion on Chromebooks as the company refuses to track them as PCs.It does help make sense of Microsoft's recent move to this low-cost computer market with their new Windows 10 "Cloudbook," however. From VentureBeat:
In a few weeks, at its education-oriented software and hardware event in New York, Microsoft could unveil a sub-premium laptop — something more robust than a Surface but not as fancy as a Surface Book.
And rather than run good old Windows 10, the new product could run something called Windows 10 Cloud, which reportedly will only be able to run apps that you can find in the Windows Store, unless you change a certain preference in Settings.
The idea is that this will keep your device more secure. However, that does mean you won’t be able to use certain apps that aren’t in the Store — like Steam — on a Windows 10 Cloud device, such as the rumored CloudBook.
This concept might sound familiar. You may be reminded of the original Surface tablet running Windows RT, for which Microsoft ultimately took a $900 million write-down. Older Windows apps wouldn’t work on the thing.
This is perhaps the least surprising part of this developing Chromebook vs. Cloudbook death-match: that Microsoft has learned nothing from the failure of Windows RT, and is still trying to find a way to monopolize software distribution on some segment of the PC market, even if it means undercutting the single biggest competitive advantage that PCs have.
In the red corner, we have Google's Chromebook, which is thriving in spite of a complete absence of hype, apparently because Google has made a better mousetrap: a good-enough product at a low-enough price point that provides education and business users with enough tools to get their jobs done, all without coming laden with a ton of anti-consumer, monopolistic bullshit.
And in the blue corner, we have Microsoft's Cloudbook, which is apparently a retread of the failed Surface RT, complete with a crippled OS that blocks the use of the huge library of Windows software which forms the reason that most Windows users use Windows for, locking it instead to the broken Windows Store that Microsoft still can't convince developers to develop for, or users to use (although they are planning to add Steam-style refunds, so there's that).
Fight! And may the best 'book win.