Then came the rumor that Google might possibly rent out Chrome OS machines to users for just $20/month. We weren’t that convinced about the rumor that time but it astoundingly came out to be true after yesterday’s announcement, although partially only.

‘Partially’ because Chrome OS netbooks are going to be available on rent, only for Educational and Enterprise customers; not for those individuals who want to rent it just for themselves. Individual buyers will have to ‘buy’ it as no rent option is available to them.

Also, other renting advantages such as full admin console for software administration & management, direct support from Google for any issues, warranty and replacement facility for the hardware aren’t covered by Google. Individual buyers will have to look up to hardware manufacturers for fulfillment of any such requirments.

Educators can get Chromebooks on rent for just $20/mo per user while businesses can order Chromebooks on rent for $28/mo per user. Consumers can ‘buy’ Chromebook for a starting price of $349 (WiFi only cheapest available Chromebook right now).

Acer and Samsung are among the first two OEMs to start selling Chromebooks starting June 15, 2011. Several other OEMs are expected to start selling Chromebooks by end of this year.

But there’s one important thing to note here. Renting Chromebook will bind you under a 3 year contract and the only way to get rid of that contract, in case you wish to do so, is by paying rest of the contract money. This sounds a little creepy but that’s the way it is, at least for now.

The minimum quantity of Chromebooks to be ordered for renting (for Educational/business use) has been set as 10 units. So, even if you run a small business and wish to get Chromebooks on rent, make sure your small business isn’t too small.

Finally, its showtime !

Google at its I/O Event yesterday unveiled the biggest surprise of the two-day event and that raised a lot of eyebrows and also shut up a lot of skeptics doubting the dwindling intentions of Google behind Chrome OS project.

Google unveiled Chromebook, also dubbed as ‘Nothing but the Web’ by Google, which itself tells a lot about the thoughts and purpose behind the Chromebook, a Chrome OS netbook.

At the time of launch, Samsung and Acer are going to be selling their Netbooks as Chromebooks(powered by Chrome OS). More OEMs are expected to join the party later this year but as of now, its just Acer and Samsung that have joined hands with Google.

But all of this glossy product announcement at Google I/O event took endless hours of engineering efforts by Chrome OS team at the back end, building things to the level where they’re today. Chrome OS was actually full of bugs when it launched in closed beta testing  phase late last year but since then, the cloud-based OS has had tons of improvements with the help of precious user feedback from beta testers.

At last, all of Chrome OS enthusiasts can take a sigh of relief and welcome the Chromebook !

But one thing that stole the limelight among other things was much awaited ‘Chrome OS event’. Google invited tech journos to the suspense packed event on Tuesday, Dec 7 and the event proved to be a mixed bag of fruits.

Chrome OS team explained that they have long been hard at work, building Chrome OS from the ground up but they’re still not ready with fully tested and debugged version of Chrome OS and therefore, as rumored earlier, releasing only beta version of Chrome OS at the moment so no consumer Chromebook for Chrome OS fans during the holiday season.

In a pilot program set up by Google for Chrome OS, the Internet giant is giving away truckloads of Chrome OS Notebooks, named Cr-48, by giving any adult U.S. citizen a chance to request for a test unit using this form. Cr-48 notebooks carry no branding whatsoever(not even Google’s ) and with distribution of fully loaded(Verizon powered 3G) notebooks, Google’s plan is to create tens of thousands of beta testers of Chrome OS beta version.

As Google clearly stated during Chrome event itself, the current version of Chrome OS installed on Cr-48 notebooks is in its beta state and therefore, all lucky recipients of Chrome OS should expect to encounter lot of bugs while using the test unit.

The more users of Cr-48 notebooks out there, the more data(bug reporting) Google will gather from actual usage habits of end consumers.

About the future of Chrome OS

Well, many skeptics were pretty unsure about Google’s stance over Chrome OS, especially after managing to grow many folds in mobile OS space with Android. The fact of the matter is that Google looks up to Chrome OS as their ultimate cloud based OS and envision it as the future of computing in the years to come.

One must note here that Google refrained from using the term ‘Netbook’ during the Chrome event and preferred calling their Cr-48 test unit as Cr-48 Notebook, not an over-sized Netbook.

Although not highlighted much, there seems to be a shift in Google’s strategy with reference to their main hardware focus regarding Chrome OS. Netbooks are sharply loosing their relevance in computing industry with the fast advent of consumer friendly tablets and Android seems more appropriately positioned to capitalize on untapped tablet market, instead of Chrome OS.

PC market is already facing severe decline due to obvious limitations and that leaves laptop/notebooks as the only potent hardware option that will successfully thrive in the days to come.  That’s probably the reason why Google is pushing ‘Chrome OS’ as the future OS for Notebooks.

Google also confirmed during the event that Acer and Samsung will be the first two companies, who would bring their Chrome OS Notebooks into the market by mid 2011. More manufacturers will join the bandwagon as the time progresses.

Google is giving away Cr-48 Notebooks via several other ways apart from the primary option of form entry so we will be reporting on those ways as we discover them. Keep visiting our site for more info.

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Now, Google has already been hard at work to get Chromebooks out of the factory for quite sometime and with such rumors coming out, there are good chances that Google will not disappoint us this time.

Google has already released Chrome 8 and is working day-in, day-out to get Chrome Web Store functional and it all seems to indicate that ChromeBooks are now on their way.

But one must not expect too much out of this launch, if the rumors turn out to be true, simply because Google branded Chrome OS Netbooks will be extremely limited in production and may not be available to users for doing some ChromeOS shopping this holiday.

Chrome extension and Chrome web store developers might prove to be the lucky guys in grabbing the very fist chromebooks.

Let’s see if we hear some official announcement from Google regarding some event next tuesday or not !

Stay tuned…Keep following us on Facebook..

But there’s a catch here. As we reported yesterday, Chrome OS Netbooks are not going to launch during holidays and Google CEO has already confirmed that Chrome OS Netbooks are few months away so there’s no rethinking over the previous consensus that Chrome OS Netbooks will not be launching anytime soon.

Instead, Chrome OS could either launch in Beta stage, as hinted by us earlier. Chrome OS bugs are still in plenty and beta launch is quite suitable in this particular situation.

There’s no denying over the fact that Chrome OS project is running behind the schedule, thanks to critical bugs , which contributed to further delay in ChromeOS project but launching beta version of Chrome OS is the best possible escape for Chrome OS team, in order to honor their commitment.

It is also quoted that that some unnamed ‘Global Netbook vendor’ will inaugurate Chrome OS netbook line. Acer and HP will likely release their Chrome OS power netbooks in December, following the first ChromeOS netbook launch.

Another news(with unnamed sources) claim is that Google is well on its way to come up with Self-branded Netbooks, just like what it did with Nexus One. With Google branded netbooks, we can be sure that Chrome OS integration with Netbook hardware will be seamless and best-in-class.

On the other side, the bad news is that Google may avoid selling its self-branded Chrome OS Netbooks through any retail store. The rumor claims that Google branded Netbooks will only be sold online, the same way Nexus One got sold.

There is no logical reasoning for ‘Online selling only’ model and completely prohibiting from Retail selling, especially when Google branded Nexus One, despite being a superb Android phone, failed to capture any reasonable market share due to failure of ‘online only’ strategy and poor marketing. Despite this rumor, our assumption is that Google will hit Retail stores along with Online store for Google branded Netbook.

As per the rumor, Inventec will first manufacture around 60-70k units of the first Chrome OS Netbook, and mass production will happen afterwards.

Stay tuned for more updates on this…

As pointed out by this TechCrunch article, one of the threads of bug reports of Chrome OS project indicate Nov 11 as some crucial date in Chrome OS timeline. Could Nov 11 be launch date for Chrome OS ? Not confirmed but Google officials are still confidently stating that Chrome OS project is right on track and Chrome OS will surely make a public debut later this year.

‘Later this year’ can’t be too late(december) so it’s highly probable that November will be the month when we can expect Chrome OS netbooks out there to be sold in truckloads during Christmas season.

We will keep reporting on final release date as there’s hardly any time left before Google presents the biggest rival to Microsoft’s Windows OS in front of entire world. Stay tuned !

According to folks at Venturebeat, they have confirmation from multiple reliable sources that Acer, the Taiwanese computer manufacturer will launch Chrome OS powered netbook(s) at the Computex Taipei show, which is scheduled to be held from June 1 to June 5.

As per very early reports, Chrome OS netbooks were supposed to be delivered by late 2010 so this particular news sounds tough to be believed as the first half of this year is yet to get over but then, we can understand why Google and Acer would want Chrome OS powered netbooks to hit market earliest possible. It’s the iPad that might be causing the worry.

With the advent of Apple iPad and growing interest of other hardware manufacturers in newly explored tablet computing industry, Netbook sales have already started to decline. Every advantage offered by Netbooks over laptops is well compensated by a tablet device such as iPad and the possibilities are much brighter in touch enabled tablet devices.

So, that could be the reason why Acer is on its way to unveil Chrome OS powered Netbooks in the first week of June. Anyways, June isn’t too far so the truth will soon come out.

When Google promised that Chrome OS Netbooks will be out in the market by fall 2010, it was presumed that multiple Netbook manufacturers will come up with Chrome OS Netbooks but now, it seems that Google doesn’t want to take any chance in launching its own OS and simply wants to ensure that Chrome OS Netbook becomes a Standard within Netbook industry.

It might be a case that Google branded Netbook may serve as the exclusive distributor of Chrome OS, much like Apple’s business model but this is just a presumption as yet. It has been Google’s nature(as what you can see with Android) to build the software side and let multiple hardware brands do the rest of the job and hence it would be a tough call for Google to go exclusive with Chrome OS.

There is another possibility that Google may become one of the many Netbook brands to offer Chrome OS. But frankly, no hardware OEM would like competing with Google on hardware front especially when the OS is built by Google itself. At worst, this might even happen but only if OEMs get terribly scared of getting out of business if they boycott Chrome OS in their Netbook offering.

Now that Google is making its entry at mobile hardware front with Nexus One (the Google Phone) along with Android, it is looking more probable for Google to come up with a Google branded Chrome OS Netbook as well.

As per the rumor mill, this Google branded Chrome OS Netbook might be sold with a 2 year data plan contract with a carrier.

So guys, whatever the case be, you better hold your plans to buying a Netbook until next Christmas. We bet, you won’t regret !

Source

With loads of excitement and hype building around Google’s dream project, the Chrome OS, such an announcement was inevitable to come up. And stay assured to hear more and more netbook OEMs announcing their tie-ups with Google for launching Chrome OS powered Netbooks.

Catch the trend of Android’s growth. It was HTC which took the plunge first and became the first Android phone manufacturer by producing T-Mobile G1. Since then, every smartphone manufacturer followed the trend and launched their flagship android phones one after the other, be it Samsung, Motorola, LG & Dell among others. And such a behaviour is obvious as no cellphone OEM wanted to loose the opportunity they could get from Android OS platform.

Similar trend is expected to happen for Chrome OS as well. No Netbook OEM would ever want to loose out of becoming a Chrome OS Netbook OEM as market is going crazy to grab it. The huge excitement may just be among the geeky crowd at the moment but we all know that non-geeky crowd(majority) simply follows geeky crowd, when it comes to tech stuff and latest tech things to grab.

Acer plans to work in tandem with Google to get the first ever Chrome OS Netbook out by late 2010. We will keep track on the developement of this netbook. Stay hooked !