Google mentioned that their ChromeBook will be available with a subscription plan for the corporate and consumer market, and they’ve held a Q&A session over at the Google I/O event, which has ended by the way.
The subscription will be for US-only at the moment, as Google is still researching markets for Europe. We can only look and jelly. Anyway, there are two packages for the corporate users, and that is enterprise (with a $28/month fee) and educational (with a $20/month fee).
You’ll need to order in bulks, minimum of 10 units, from Google, and you’ll be tied with a 3-years plan. There’s no down payment required, and your warranty will be dealt with by Google itself. When you’ve subscribed to this package, you’ll have access to a management console provided by Google, and you’ll have Google’s technical support as well.
Google mentioned that they did a study, and found that most institutions never upgrade their machines before three years, meaning to say that three years is the best time-span to upgrade a machine. Given that data, it just made sense to offer lower monthly rates and on a refresh cycle that fit well with what they found.
An enterprise user will pay $28 for 36 months, but that includes full warranty and replacement provisions, technical support and all of the updates that Google will provide along the way. Notably, this doesn’t include Google Apps — you’ll need to pony up the standard rate for that as an add-on. At a glance, this “bargain” seems like an absurd one, much like subsidized 3G netbooks that faltered quickly after hitting the mainstream just over a year ago. But here’s the difference: enterprise and education customers can count on a dramatic decrease in costs from a maintenance standpoint, which is what Google is betting on.
What if you need 3G? Then you’ll have to pay an additional $3 for the 100MB gratis connection from Verizon (in US). What about potential oversea buyers? European carriers will hash out details in Spain, France, UK, Netherlands, Germany and Italy, but nothing’s being revealed today. We’re told that Google’s still evaluating what makes the most sense in those nations.
Consumers, of course, will pay a flat rate, and will be looking to Acer or Samsung for warranty work and technical support. The Series 5 gets going at $429 for the WiFi model, while the 3G edition (which does indeed include 100MB of data from Verizon each month for the life of the product) will go for $499. Acer’s Chromebook will cost $349 for the WiFi model, while the 3G variant will demand an undisclosed amount more.
What if you wish to terminate the subscription half way? According to Google, users who wish to terminate must “pay out the rest of their contract.” In other words, you’re paying for a 36 month lease.
Here’s an additional info. Yes, you can’t really install any apps like you used to on a Windows or Mac OS X system, but Google also understands that, and is developing a new system with Citrix to create a new build of Citrix Receiver, a piece of software that should leave its existing beta trials and hit the public universe this summer.
Google demoed the software on a CR-48 at their Google I/O event, and while the setup was obviously optimized, it worked shockingly well. A backend Windows server had a copy of Photoshop CS5 onboard, and the CR-48 was able to load it within a matter of seconds through Receiver. Not a light model — we’re talking about the full, bona fide version of Photoshop. Sounds similarly like loading up war3 from the network server using the computers in Swinburne’s lab, something we did in summer sem.
Of course, you’ll still need to manage a backend server in a scenario like this, but given that most businesses and schools already have something similar in place, it shouldn’t be asking too much to pipe things in via Receiver. Of course, there’s the cost of buying the receiver, which should be rather pricey. Also, it’d be ridiculous to edit a 5MB image over 3G, but still possible, if you’re on a WiFi-n network.
SOURCE via Google
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