14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier today we talked about Chromebooks and how Microsoft feels pretty threatened by them. Redmond has announced it plans to roll out super affordable Windows 8.1 laptops, which will hopefully help reorient customers’ interests.
But while this is happening in the Microsoft garden, Dell’s one and only Chromebook is selling like crazy. What’s more, it seems the company can’t handle the success so at the moment it has halted sales of the device. Only seven months after its release, Dell’s Chromebook is nowhere to be found on the company’s website.
The company appears to be facing difficulty meeting orders, due to the extraordinary feedback from customers.
“Sorry, but this item is no longer available for purchase online. Please contact your sales representative for details on how to order.”
So for the time being, schools / educational customers interested in purchasing the Dell Chromebook will have to turn to their local representatives in order to get their hands on this particular model.
Basically, Dell is limiting their consumer pool, so individual buyers who were hoping to grab the company’s Chromebook will have to reorient themselves towards similar models coming from Lenovo, HP, Samsung, Toshiba or ASUS.
Judging by what’s happening, Microsoft is right to fear Chromebooks. These are inexpensive machines with decent specifications that tend to be used for basic tasks.
Most importantly, these laptops have seen an incredible rise in the educational market. According to figures provided by industry analyst firm NPD, Chromebooks accounted for 35% of all US commercial laptop shipments to date in 2014. Compared to the same period last year, the figures have increased with a whopping 250%.
Brand vendors are quite aware of this trend and they are racing to launch more and more models, thus diversifying the ecosystem.
Until the end of the year, a total of 20 new Chromebook models are expected to be made available on the market. Just last week, Acer introduced its new C720 Chromebook model, which is the first of its kind to run on an Intel Core i3 chip.
Apparently, more Chromebooks with bumped performance are coming later this year. Acer is also rumored to be one of the first companies to launch a Chromebook equipped with an NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor, which should be relatively powerful.
Anyway, for those mulling over a Dell Chromebook, the company said the laptop would become available online again, but didn't give us any specific dates to cling to.