Blog post written by Coert van den Thillaart. Richard is a former blogger on Blogpodium and is since 2004 active in the middleware area (EAI, SOA, EDA etc.) at Accenture Netherlands.

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Since June, ChromeBooks have become available to the general public with Samsung and Acer selling them. ChromeBooks are netbooks or ultraportables that run Google ChromeOS. And it’s this OS that makes these ChromeBooks interesting.

ChromeOS is an custom built version of Linux that basically is nothing more that the Chrome browser we use on our desktops. Even thought the ChromeBooks have internal storage there is no filesystem, actually there is no local anything. Local storage is used for caching only. The concept behind ChromeBooks and ChromeOS is that everything happens in the Google cloud. The applications you use, the music you want to listen to, the files you store, everything. Even though Google has a decent set of applications available and an application store to get more this concept does provide some limitations. Because not everything you may want to use is available (yet). So where is the appeal?

What ChromeOS does is downgrade the hardware to nothing more that a vessel for the moment. By doing everything in the cloud you can log on to any ChromeOS machine with your account and all your stuff is there. No syncing, no installing, no nothing. Within seconds you are online and good to go. This opens a lot of opportunities for consumers and maybe even more for businesses. With ChromeOS you do not need to be tied to any location as everything you need is an internet connection. Even without a connection HTML 5 enables you to work of of the last version it has offline until your connection comes back up. The hardware, to an extent, has become disposable. If you have issues with your keyboard, screen, or whatever, you can go to tech support and simply get a new one. Again: no syncing, no installing, no nothing. You just get the new piece of hardware and you’re good to go. The hardware currently on the market caters to strengths of the OS. ChromeBooks tend to be lightweight, have long batterylife (8+ hours) and there are models that have a built in 3G modem so you are online wherever you are.

This concept of disposable hardware also extends to how you purchase the hardware. Google envisions a subscription model where you pay a monthly fee to ‘own’ a ChromeBook. The nature of the OS enables this because nothing is stored on the device so returning it has no impact.

But do all these benefits cover for the fact that a lot of applications aren’t available yet? For most common tasks it definitely does. And for the rest Google has one last trick up it’s sleeve. In the next update (expected in August 2011) it will include a Citrix client granting access to virtualized systems in all their variations.

ChromeBooks offer an interesting proposition that becomes increasingly interesting with more and more applications becoming available in the Cloud. What do you think? Are ChromeBooks here to stay?