Sorin Adam Matei
Hardware

Google Launches Chrome OS as Hardware and Software Subscription Service

Sorin Adam Matei

Google plans to lease computers for $20 a month, including hardware and software upgrades. I/O 2011. From Mashable:

 

The program, called Chromebooks for Business & Education allows businesses and educational institutions to pay Google a monthly fee in exchange for a supported, updated Chromebook. Business users will pay $28 a month for each Chromebook and educational institutions will pay $20 a month per unit.

Here are the details of the subscription plan as we know them now:

  • Schools and businesses will order their Chromebook units directly from Google at google.com/chromebook, beginning June 15, 2011.
  • Google will cover phone, email and hardware replacement for Chromebook Business & Education users.
  • IT managers can use virtualization platforms like Citrix to offer access to non-web apps, essentially making the Chromebook a thin client on steroids.
  • Administrators have various management options for configuring and monitoring lots of different units.

 

Sorin Adam Matei

Assistant Vice President for Partnerships in Strategic Defense Innnovation and Professor of Communication at Purdue University, Director of the FORCES initiative leads research teams that study the relationship between technological and social systems using big data, simulation, and mapping approaches. He published papers and articles in Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Information Society, National Interest, and Foreign Policy. He is the author or co-editor of several books. The most recent is Structural differentation in social media. He also co-edited Ethical Reasoning in Big Data,Transparency in social media and Roles, Trust, and Reputation in Social Media Knowledge Markets: Theory and Methods (Computational Social Sciences) , all three the product of the NSF funded KredibleNet project. Dr. Matei's teaching portfolio includes technology and strategy, online interaction, and digital media analytics classes. A former BBC World Service journalist, his contributions have been published in Esquire and several leading Romanian newspapers. In Romania, he is known for his books Boierii Mintii (The Mind Boyars), Idolii forului (Idols of the forum), and Idei de schimb (Spare ideas).

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