By now, you’ve probably heard about Google’s new Chromebooks but have you given one a shot yet? Here are 5 reasons why every Google Apps-powered business should be looking at Chromebooks today.
1. Zero effort data security
According to a study by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Intel, on average, it costs an organization $49,246 dollars for every laptop lost or stolen. The cost may be much larger if sensitive company or customer information was lost with the laptop.
Maybe you’ve considered implementing data encryption on laptops but have found that the hassle of implementing this level of security is just to cost and time prohibitive on today’s PCs. It’s also difficult to be sure that all of your user data is encrypted on a PC.
With Chromebooks, data encryption and security is built in and enabled by default. Every user who logs into a Chromebook gets all of their data encrypted without needing to do or know anything. It just works. As soon as you shut your Chromebook or power down, you can rest assured that your data is locked away and inaccessible to outsiders should the Chromebook be lost or stolen.
2. Three letters – TCO
TCO stands for Total Cost of Ownership. PC hardware has gotten really cheap but each computer costs your company a whole lot more than the upfront sticker price. There are the hours spent by IT personnel installing, upgrading and cleaning Windows, license fees for Windows, Office, antivirus software, backup software and more.
When your hard drive dies or your motherboard gets fried in a power surge, you not only pay for the hardware replacement and repair, you also lose valuable time recovering your data and getting your system back the way you like it.
But with Chromebooks, your sticker price is your TCO. The monthly Chromebook cost covers hardware, support, and warranty replacement. There’s no need for add-on Antivirus software and since all of your data is on the web, backups are a thing of the past. A Chromebook requires far less IT Support because it’s no more complex than a standard web browser.
If your Chromebook needs replacing there’s no painful transfer that needs to take place, you’ll be up and running in seconds with all your custom web applications, settings, and bookmarks thanks to Chrome Sync.
3. Chromebooks are nothing but the web, just like you
You’re a Google Apps user, you understand the power that comes from having your data on the web and available wherever you are. You also know the frustration of having something stand between you and your data.
How many times have you opened your laptop wanting to quickly check email or look over a doc only to have Windows tell you it’ll be a few minutes while updates are installed, or your Antivirus software needs to run a full scan bringing performance to a standstill. For many PCs, even a normal boot can be counted in minutes, not seconds before you’re able to open a browser.
With Chromebooks, you can get to your web data, really, really fast, 15 seconds or less. Also, Chromebooks don’t suffer from the “bit rot” slowdown that PCs do, they’ll be booting just as fast 2 years from now as they did on day one. A few minutes saved on boot up can translate into a huge amount of saved time for you and your users.
4. Only slightly more complicated than a toaster oven
Today’s PCs are far too bloated and complicated. A clean (if it can be called that) install of Windows 7 can use up 8.6 gigabytes of disk space and that’s before you even install Office to do something productive. Chances are you won’t ever make use of much of that bloat but you’ll need to keep it updated, patched, backed up and fine tuned.
For years, researchers (and end users) have been calling for PCs to become more like other appliances, simple and easy to maintain but software vendors have largely ignored that call. Until now.
Chromebooks are lean and light on their feet. A “clean image” of Chrome OS is currently less than 1 gigabyte in size uncompressed. That gigabyte represents the bare minimum needed to get you from a black screen to the web. Patching is done in the background and is barely noticeable. All of this translates into a simple, intuitive experience for end users.
5. Always connected
Today business doesn’t stop when you’re out of the office but it grinds to a halt when you’re offline. Chromebooks are all about being connected wherever you are with 3G and WiFi access. Even if you’re not a constant road warrior, the included 100mb 3G data each month is enough to keep you going with email and web access in between WiFi hotspots.
There’s something extremely satisfying about being able to punch out a detailed email in the back of a taxi cab or tame your out of control inbox while enjoying the park. With flexible 3G pricing (as cheap as $9.99 for on the go, all day access) you get the option of anywhere connectivity without the forced, monthly data cost of other 3G devices.
With Chromebooks costing $499 or less, it just makes sense to be looking at one today and starting to consider where and how they can fit into your business. So what do you plan to do with Chromebooks?
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