- Google says businesses and schools can keep buying and managing Chromebooks for now.
- The company also says it will offer “multiple pathways” to transition to the new Googlebooks experience.
- The post reads as a short- to medium-term reassurance for Chromebooks, but not a resounding long-term promise.
Chromebooks have been the unexciting-but-affordable laptop answer for schools and plenty of businesses for years, which is why Google’s shiny new Googlebook category raises an awkward question — if you’re an IT admin with a fleet of manageable ChromeOS laptops, should you still be buying more of them? Google has now offered an answer that’s reassuring at a glance, but implies that you might not want to get too comfortable.
In a new Google Cloud Blog post, Google says it is taking a “phased approach over the next couple of years” for enterprises and educational institutions as it adds Googlebooks to its device lineup. The company says Chromebooks remain a “reliable, long-term investment” and that organizations can continue buying and deploying them. That’s good to know, but also not far off the minimum you’d expect. Nobody seriously thought Google was about to pull the plug on school and business laptops overnight.
