Chrome takes the next step
Google is everywhere. Whether it is the browser market, the smartphone OS market or even the computer OS market as it would now seem. The much awaited Chrome OS will “commercially” available in December if everything goes according to plan.
Asia Netbook manufacturing firms are close to finishing off the Smartbooks that will carry Chrome as their OS. Smartbooks is the name given to the new generation of improved Netbooks that will hit the stores in December. HP and Acer are two of the firms that ready to jump into this new market and by all accounts are very excited by it.
The interesting thing to watch here will be the impact these Smartbooks will have on the iPad market. Smartbooks are designed to do much the same thing that iPads do currently, but with a physical keypad (which many people still prefer) and are designed to download and run apps from the Chrome OS store. The store will feature apps of three kinds,
- Applications
- Extensions
- Themes.
Developers need only pay $5 to register themselves and then can proceed to sell their apps or offer it free or offer them on trial. Five percent of the cost of the application will go to Google and a 30 percent transaction fee will be added to the price of the app, as a transaction fee which will be collected by Google. The lowest price for an app is $1.99 while a maximum price ceiling is yet to be defined.