微软遭遇Chrombook之痛

    亚马逊（Amazon）在圣诞节后的第二天公布了购物季热销商品排行榜，笔记本销量排名第二的是华硕（Asus）变形金刚（Transformer）。这是一款Windows 8笔记本，配有可拆卸键盘，可以非常便捷地“变形”成平板电脑。毫无疑问，变形金刚恰恰就是微软（Microsoft）翘首以盼的那种杀手级便携式电子产品。

    那么，亚马逊的这份排行榜是否对微软完全是好消息呢？不尽然，销量第一和第三的笔记本都与Windows无缘，大放异彩的是Chromebook。不过这款笔记本并不是什么新产品，它的一代产品上市已经有两年时间。Chromebook是由谷歌和宏碁（Acer）、惠普（HP）、联想（Lenovo）、三星（Samsung）等合作伙伴共同研发的轻量级上网本，是全功能笔记本的替代产品。

    Chromebook可不仅仅是传统电脑的替代品。它们还是微软在孜孜不倦地诋毁、攻击的对象。Chromebook有幸成为微软“Scroogled”战役的重点打击对象。所谓“Scroogled”是微软从2012年11月开始发起的一场市场营销活动，旨在抨击、揭露谷歌的产品和商业战略。微软在抹黑Chromebook的这场大战中大放厥词，称它既不能运行Windows，也不能运行Office、iTunes、photoshop等主流应用程序，如果不连接互联网，简直“一无是处”。

    “Scroogled”战役的最初目标是谷歌占据统治地位的搜索引擎和饱受争议的隐私策略。不过，就在圣诞节前，微软转移目标，将枪口瞄准了Chromebook。我听到这样的消息时不禁一头雾水。因为Chromebook的市场行情一直很差，谷歌对此一筹莫展。

    不过，最近发生在我身边的一则故事让我认识到，Chromebook已成为微软的又一根肉中刺。一边是PC市场增长停滞，另一边是手机和平板市场节节败退，微软这几年的日子很不好过。我的两个儿子在奥克兰市就读小学，前不久，我所在的教师家长协会决定购买36台Chromebook供四年级学生使用。几周后，学校又作出决定，再购入约70台Chromebook，而且还计划升级学校的WiFi网络，以便新购入的所有笔记本能同时联网。这意味着，只要老师同意，近半数四、五年级学生能随时使用笔记本。

    这件事令人吃惊的地方不在于一所市区学校一次性购买了100台Chrombook，而是根本没人提出要购买Windows产品。就算有人提出替代方案，讨论的也无外乎Mac和iPad。在学校的图书馆、多媒体实验室和某些教室已经部署了不少Mac电脑。

    教师家长协会和学校为什么选择Chromebook？原因一目了然。虽然Chromebook没有Office，但内置的免费Google Docs是一款简单易用的软件，完全可以替代Office，满足小学生们的需求简直是小菜一碟。至于没有Windows——或者说没有Mac系统——对精打细算的教育机构来说反而是件好事。Chromebook启动迅速，内容分享简单，不需要升级，也无需随时备份，整个系统能随时保持最新状态。当然，最值得一提的是，它的主流型号价格仅在200到300美元之间，是性价比极高的产品。【罗杰斯家庭教育基金（Rogers Family Foundation）主管混合教育的格雷格•克莱恩在教育网站edSurge发表了一篇博客，倡议奥克兰地区的学校引入高科技教学手段。克雷恩在文中详细列举了学校选用Chrombook的优点。】

    当然，我们不能以偏概全，我猜测眼下依然有大量学校选择Windows产品。不过，谷歌Chromebook显然已经成功得手，让我们的孩子在童年时就开始接受其软件和服务的熏陶。老牌科技博客Verge最近发文指出，微软之痛不在于硬件，而在于它最赚钱的软件和服务正被谷歌的免费产品大肆鲸吞。

    现在看来，Scroogled战役不但没能收到成效，反而助长了谷歌的势头。上周，调研机构NPD报告称，21%的笔记本，买家是商业组织、教育机构和政府机构等机构组织。NPD还指出，就在2012年，Chromebook的市场份额还“微不足道”，如今它市场份额的增速秒杀其它所有产品类别。NPD行业分析部副总裁史蒂芬•贝克在接受采访时表示，消费者将Chromebook当作廉价PC和平板电脑的替代产品。“Chromebook大获成功，市场定位非常清晰。”

    截至上周，在亚马逊网站的笔记本销售排行榜上，华硕变形金刚已跌落至第三，排名前两位的是宏碁和三星的Chromebook。一切都表明，过气的是微软，而不是谷歌。（财富中文网）

    译者：项航

    When Amazon released its list of holiday bestsellers the day after Christmas, the second-most popular laptop was the Asus Transformer, a Windows 8 laptop with a detachable keyboard that converts into a tablet. It's just the kind of portable consumer device that Microsoft (MSFT) desperately needs to be a hit.

    So was the Amazon announcement good news for Microsoft? Not quite. As it turns out, the first- and third-bestselling laptops at Amazon over the holidays were not Windows PCs. They were Chromebooks, the stripped down, web-only machines that Google (GOOG) and partners like Acer, HP (HPQ), Lenovo, and Samsung have been peddling for two years as an alternative to full-fledged laptops.

    Chromebooks aren't just any PC alternative. They're the one Microsoft has worked hard to discredit as a mere toy. Chromebooks feature prominently in Redmond's "Scroogled" marketing campaign, a much-criticized series of attack ads on Google's products and business practices that Microsoft launched in November 2012. In the Chromebook "Scroogled" ads, actors disparage the Google-powered laptops for not being able to run Windows or popular programs like Office, iTunes, or Photoshop, and for being "pretty much a brick" when not connected to the Internet.

    The Scroogled campaign had initially targeted Google's dominant search engine and its controversial privacy practices. The new focus on Chromebooks ahead of this holiday season was a bit of a head-scratcher for me at first. After all, the Google-powered machines had struggled to gain traction with consumers.

    But a story close to home gave me reason to think that Chromebooks are the latest headache for Microsoft, which has struggled to gain traction in phones and tablets at a time when growth in the PC market has stalled. At the public elementary school that my two sons attend in Oakland, the parent teacher association, on whose board I serve, recently decided to purchase 36 Chromebooks for students in the fourth grade. A few weeks later, we received news that the school district would purchase an additional 70 or so Chromebooks -- and would upgrade the Wi-Fi in the school so all the new machines could work simultaneously. This allows half of fourth and fifth graders to work on computers at any one time, if their teachers decide it's appropriate.

    What was striking was not so much that a school in an urban district would purchase 100 Chromebooks, but that there was never any discussion of purchasing Windows machines. When an alternative to the Chromebooks was discussed, the conversation was about Macs -- of which there are several in the school library, media lab, and some classrooms -- or iPads.

    It's not hard to see why our PTA and the school district opted for Chromebooks. Sure, they don't have Office. But they do have the free Google Docs, which is an easy-to-use alternative and sufficient for most tasks required of elementary school students. As for the lack of Windows -- or for that matter MacOS -- that's actually an asset for the cost-sensitive school environment. The machines boot up immediately, they can be shared easily amongst students, they never have to be upgraded or backed up, and they are always up to date. Oh, and at prices ranging between $200 and $300 for popular models, they're more affordable than most alternatives. (In a blog post on the educational website edSurge, Greg Klein, director of blended learning at the Rogers Family Foundation, which advises the Oakland schools on technology solutions, lays out the benefits of Chromebooks in the classroom in more detail.)

    This is purely anecdotal, of course, and I suspect there are plenty of schools that are choosing Windows machines. But Google's Chromebooks are clearly making inroads, and getting an important demographic -- millennials -- hooked on their software and services at an early age. And as The Verge, a prominent tech blog, recently noted, it is Google's threat to Microsoft's lucrative software and services, more than hardware, that has Redmond worried.

    The Scroogled campaign doesn't seem to be working and may even be backfiring for Microsoft. Last week, the NPD Group reported that 21% of all notebooks sold through resellers, which are mainly purchased by organizations like businesses, educational institutions, and government agencies. In 2012, Chromebooks had a "negligible" share of the market, according to NPD, and the surge represented the largest share increase among any product category. In an interview, Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD, said Chromebooks are being purchased as an alternative to both low-cost PCs and tablets. "Chomebooks have been very successful," Baker said. "There was clearly a market demand."

    By this week on Amazon.com, the Asus Transformer had slipped to No. 3 in the laptop category behind two Chromebooks from Acer and Samsung. It all suggests that the one getting Scroogled is Microsoft.