"This is the right device for student learning," said Bryan Weinert, technology coordinator for the Leyden Community High School District in Illinois. "We plan to deploy 3,500 to students next year. Every single student will be issued a Chromebook they can use at school and at home."

The Chromebooks will replace Netbooks, he said. "We were looking for a device that can be invisible. We want teachers to focus on instruction," not technical support, waiting for laptops to boot, or making sure they're charged, he said.

Oh, yeah, Chromebooks. They were going to destroy Microsoft's business once upon a time.

"Although Chromebooks offered by Acer and Samsung Electronics may see low cumulative sales of 25,000-30,000 units at the end of 2011, HTC is evaluating the feasibility of combining the advantages of Chrome OS and Android for use in internet-access devices, products between tablet PCs and netbooks, according to component makers. However, Acer and HTC did not respond when asked for comment."

A dual-boot device that's between a tablet and a netbook? Almost a niche-y a market as Chromebooks seem to be so far.

"Starting some time around July or August, Google's partners Samsung and Acer will launch laptops and perhaps also a desktop or two, based on Chrome OS. I am guessing laptops will start at $299 and "naked" desktops at $149. Given the superb performance of these Chrome OS PCs, with boot-up times (from cold) of less than even Apple's MacBook Air, some consumers and enterprises will pick Chrome OS PCs over the much more expensive Apple PCs."<br />
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A good example of how price can blind you to why people buy computers. Would someone who buys a ChromeOS computer really have been in the market for an Apple device? Far more likely they'd have been looking at cheap PCs.<br />
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Don't forget either that the first generation of netbooks running Linux had huge returns because people couldn't make them work: they expected (and later got) Windows. Expect something similar for ChromeOS.