Google announces Chromebooks from Samsung and Acer for business leasing

Google will begin leasing laptops next month using the Chrome operating system to businesses, governments and schools.

The Chromebook laptops, which are based on the CR-48 reference design, use the browser as the desktop for the operating system and rely almost entirely on cloud storage.

The first commercial units will come from Samsung and Acer and be powered by Intel dual-core Atom processors.

Samsung will bring out a 12.1in notebook running Chrome, with Wi-Fi connection only at $429, or Wi-Fi and 3G for $499. Acer's 11.6in notebook, meanwhile, will start at $349, with optional hardware upgrades.

The first units will go on sale on 15 June in the US, UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy via Amazon and local retail outlets. European pricing has yet to be announced.

Google is leasing the Chromebooks at $28 per person for business users, and $20 for government and educational users on three-year contracts. The devices can upgraded at the end of the contract if the customer wishes to continue using the system.

"The corporate model of computing has been broken for some time," said Dave Girouard, president of Google Enterprise.

"The desktop hasn't moved forward at all in the last decade. For us this may be bigger than the Google Apps launch in terms of impact."

Girouard explained that the shift from desktop to browser-based computing will cut large amounts of money from IT budgets and free staff to build new projects rather than focus on maintaining older systems.

The price of leasing the laptops includes all software upgrades, and replacement of systems that suffered hardware failure. Any use of Google Apps for Business will be an extra cost.

The amount of setup time needed for each new corporate machine with Chrome OS could be cut to minutes, and systems can be constantly updated to use the best software without the need for involvement by the IT department.

In addition, the support costs will be minimal, since all user accounts can be managed from a central console. Once a user signs in, their profile is saved irrespective of the device they are using.