The $249 budget laptop or notebook, Google Chromebook, has left reviewers impressed. Rather than just being a browser in a box, the 11.6inch, ARM-based, Samsung manufactured Chromebook actually has a lot to offer Web users. At just 2.5 pounds and a battery life of 6.5 hours, Chromebook is the perfect “carry along” notebook if you work with Google applications, access cloud storage but also want some offline storage, and are looking for a simple and efficient machine that gives you what you need without extra bloatware.

Google itself is promoting Chromebook as a family’s at-home computer for non-complex tasks such as checking your email, listening to music, watching videos and playing games. But it’s tuning out to be much more.

Specifications of Google Chromebook

Google Chromebook does not come with much desktop software as the idea is to move towards lightweight Web and skip the inconvenience of device updates, software and security updates and IT support.

To get people started on Chromebook, Google is offering 100GB of free storage on Google Drive for 2 years. You can also sync activities with any Android device.

Technical specifications of Chromebook include:

• 11.6inch 1366x768p matte display (good indoor and outdoor viewing)
• full-size keyboard
• button-less trackpad for people used to the mouse
• fanless dual-core A15 based Samsung Exynos 5 Dual (5250) SoC
• 2GB RAM
• 16GB internal storage
• full-size SD card reader
• USB 2.0
• USB 3.0
• HDMI output
• SIM slot (for 3G)

Applications and other features on Chromebook

Chromebook comes with all the apps web users typically use in a day. It also includes features that make your life easier. You have:

• Google Drive to upload and share files
• Google Play for music
• YouTube or Google Play Movies for movies and videos
• Google Hangouts (video chat with up to 9 friends at a time)
• Google Voice for telephone calling
• Chrome Instant to load websites instantly
• Google Cloudprint to access a printer on your network
• Seamless syncing of activities with Android tabs and phones and other devices using the Chrome browser with Google Now.
• Access to thousands of free and paid applications, themes and extensions on Chrome Web Store such as Pandora (organize music), Pixlr Editor (edit pictures), Stupeflix (create home video), Kindle, etc.
• Create documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings with apps like Google Drive, Zoho or SlideRocket.
• Access thousands of games in Games Collection including popular choices like Angry Birds, Solitaire, and WGT Golf Challenge.
• Chrome Remote Desktop to access a remote PC and carry out complex tasks, access storage, etc.
• Stay productive offline too with Offline Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar, Scratchpad, Media and more.

Limitations of Google Chromebook

Chromebook currently has poor support for OpenDocument Format but you can use apps like InstallFree Nexus for LibreOffice to overcome that problem. If you are a programmer, designer or hi-end graphic and CPU intensive game player, Chromebook is not for you.

Value of Google Chromebook

Chromebook is ideal for web users – in physical specs and on board applications. Additionally, it offers multiple layers of security, user-based access, cloud storage, offline access, WiFi and 3G connectivity, portability and performance. For $249, it’s your best bet.

Related articles

• Google Chromebooks Series 5 Now Available (epicagear.com)
• Google announces Samsung Chromebook ‘for everyone’ (telegraph.co.uk)
• New Chromebook Ads Look Low Budget, As If Made on the Chromebook Itself [Video] (news.softpedia.com)

A new trend is making its way around the globe with many large cloud vendors launching cloud-based marketplaces for enterprises, SMBs, and even home businesses to shop for cloud-based solutions. The biggies are partnering with other domain specialists to add value to their marketplace and offer customers a one-stop shopping destination. The goal is to help consumers discover and purchase cloud solutions that are the best fit for their requirements.

According to a new software market report from MindCommerce “Cloud Application Marketplace 2012 – 2017,” the global cloud applications marketplace will boom from 2012 to 2017, largely driven by the huge adoption of smartphones and tablets, as well as the lower cost of cloud application operations. Another key finding of the report is that collaboration in development and delivery of cloud-based applications is necessary to maintain competitive edge – a fact that many software application development companies are recognizing.

Advantages of cloud app marketplaces

Cloud vendors are selling B2B as well as B2C solutions. Marketplaces are offering ready-to-use Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions to vendors, open-source and commercial solutions, development platforms, customization services, along with development and deployment packages. They are simplifying the management of cloud apps for business owners.

Cloud app marketplaces are a good way for small application development companies and individuals to expose their apps to a wider audience. By listing their apps in marketplaces of known providers like AppDirect, Amazon, Google or CloudForge, lesser known application vendors are able to get to markets faster and see better results by leveraging on the vendor’s proven expertise, reach and responsiveness.

Moreover, most cloud marketplaces offer tools and add-ons to make billing, application lifecycle management, development and monitoring easier. Online backup of applications is provided along with support services.

Increasing competition

Companies such as Acquia, BitNami and OpenLogic have been offering the preconfigured app experience since some time. However, with enterprise giants latching on to the trend, the competition gets much tougher. The one thing smaller companies must now rely on is the appeal of their specialized services, niche target audience catering, cost-effectiveness, customizability and broader array of services.

Earlier this year, Amazon launched the AWS Marketplace with the promise of one-click deployment of popular software apps to the cloud. It offers a variety of commercial and open source products including 10gen, CA, Drupal, IBM, MediaWiki, Microsoft, SAP, WordPress and Zend besides handling the billing and administrative work too. RightScale offers preconfigured software bundles including database-as-a-service and other application or stack specific offerings.

While enterprise app stores are also catching on, many SMBs are realizing that partnering with a provider with a proven history of success in the field is not only a faster and cheaper way to get their wares to app store shelves but also more secure and manageable via the support and add-on services provided.

Everyone is talking about the Cloud. Enterprises are considering moving to cloud solutions to reduce costs and operational load, pushing non-core business tasks off their infrastructural networks. While these options offer various opportunities, their efficient management is not always streamlined.  It makes sense for custom application development companies to evaluate the open source cloud service management solutions available in the market that show promise.

According to the InfoWorld Best of Open Source Software (BOSSIE) Awards, the best open source cloud software include:

• OpenStack: The open source software aims to support organizations to build private and public clouds that are easy to implement, hugely scalable and feature rich. The code of OpenStack is freely available under the license of Apache 2.0. Administrators have control over cloud resources while end-users get an easy self-service portal through which they can provision their VMs and storage. The forthcoming Folsom release extends management to virtual network infrastructure like Open vSwitch.
• CloudStack: Also available under the Apache license, CloudStack is a Java application that supports the deployment and management of large networks of virtual machines as a highly available, scalable cloud computing platform. It supports popular hypervisors including VMware, Oracle VM, KVM, XenServer and Xen Cloud Platform. Cloud management can be done via an easy-to-use web interface, command line or a full-featured RESTful API.
• Jclouds: jcloud supports development against cloud environments using Java and Clojure libraries based API abstractions. It supports 30 cloud providers and cloud software stacks including Amazon, GoGrid, Ninefold, vCloud, OpenStack, and Azure.
• Eucalyptus: An excellent public/private hybrid cloud computing platform (IaaS) with APIs that integrate with the RightScale myCloud service, Eucalyptus is endorsed by Amazon itself for use of the AWS APIs. It is compatible with many tools and applications that also adhere to AWS API standards.
• Ganeti: A management tool from Google for small clusters of virtualization servers running Xen or KVM, Ginati supports instance setup using a file, an LVM volume, or a DRBD mirror. It can do live migrations of instances from one server to another (local storage only), and provides real HA fail-over versus rebooting lost VMs elsewhere on the cluster.
• Cloud Foundry: A PaaS offering, CloudFoundry supports quick deployment and scaling of applications with a choice of clouds including VMware’s operated Cloud Service and Micro Cloud Foundry; developer frameworks including Spring for Java, Ruby for Rails and Sinatra, node.js, Grails, Scala on Lift; and application services including RabbitMQ and vFabric PostgreSQL from VMware and MySQL, MongoDB, Redis and more.
• JBoss AS 7: A huge improvement on earlier versions, JBoss Application Server 7 is high performing and lightweight. It supports modularity and features OSGi support, concurrent deployment, powerful management via a web console or Java and HTTP APIs or command line, dual mode launch (domain and standalone), and builds on standalone OSS projects including Hibernate, RESTEasy, etc.

Other promising cloud solutions include Chef and Juju. Many enterprise application development companies are looking at open source cloud solutions to not only reduce costs but to leverage on their integration capabilities with other popular open source solutions.

Related articles

• VMware joining OpenStack delayed, for now (networkworld.com)
• Here’s How VMware Will Own The Next Wave In IT (VMW) (businessinsider.com)