Google’s Chromebook Heads to Walmart, Staples

by William White | June 18, 2013 9:52 am

Google (GOOG[1]) on Monday announced that its Chromebook laptop will soon be available at more than 6,600 stores worldwide.

The first new retailer[2] of the Chromebook is Walmart (WMT[3]), which beginning today offers an Acer Chromebook. The Acer model will be equipped with a 16GB solid-state drive, and is available at over 2,800 stores in the United States for $199. At the beginning of this weekend, Staples (SPLS[4]) also will begin carrying Google Chromebooks at more than 1,500 stores, with models coming from Acer, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ[5]) and Samsung (SSNLF[6]).

In coming months, Google plans to have even more retailers across the world carrying Chromebook.

This expansion to new retailers is likely an attempt by Google to bring cloud computing to more people[7]. While it hasn’t caught on with customers yet, Google believes cloud computing is the future. The idea behind cloud computing is to dump the huge hard drives and instead store everything online (which explains why the Acer Chromebook only has a 16GB hard drive). This doesn’t just include files and documents; applications are stored online as well.

Endnotes:

  1. GOOG: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=GOOG
  2. first new retailer: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/chromebooks-coming-to-more-stores-near.html
  3. WMT: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=WMT
  4. SPLS: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=SPLS
  5. HPQ: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=HPQ
  6. SSNLF: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=SSNLF
  7. bring cloud computing to more people: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2042280/google-adds-more-retailers-for-chromebook.html

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