HP was apparently surprised by the success of the Chromebooks, as it was not expecting their Chromebook to do as well as it has. Meg Whitman stated at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom conference just yesterday that Hewlett-Packard couldn’t believe the appeal that the Chrome OS based laptops have in the many different markets and fields that people use the devices. Chromebooks are used by a wide range of people from students in school programs to small businesses, and your everyday consumer that just wants an easy to use lightweight product that can give them fast and simplistic, unbridled access to the web and connected applications. There might always be a need for a traditional Windows or Mac based PCs, but the Chromebook delivers an experience all it’s own to those who really have no need for all the stuff that comes with your standard desktop or laptop computers.
Speaking on the success that the Chromebook has seen in the small business and corporate world, Whitman also said that “It’s a broader appeal than I originally anticipated or we anticipated that it would be…it does appear there is a real life to Chromebook in the small to medium-sized business and even in corporate enterprise. When it comes to the options consumers and small businesses are faced with when needing to complete every day tasks like take notes and browse the web, as well as use and sync email and other things like documents or produce spreadsheets, not to mention get access to the wealth of apps, it’s hard to beat the affordability and versatility of a Chromebook. HP themselves offer two different Chromebook models, one that costs $279 for the 11-inch model and one that costs $299 for the 14-inch model. Hp is not the only company seeing success with the Chromebooks though, the Acer C720 is also a pretty decent offering, and Samsung announced just recently there next version of the Chromebook, the Samsung Chromebook 2 with the faux leather back that we saw for the last couple days. The Samsung Chromebook 2 will come in two different models as well with different screen sizes, and three colors. Black and White for the 11-inch Chromebook, and a gray color for the 13-inch Chromebook.