Google-Powered Laptops Hit the Market

SAN FRANCISCO -

The first laptops running on a Google-designed software system were slated to go on sale in the United States and six other countries in June.

The scheduled June 1 5 release date means the lightweight laptops will hit the market nearly two years after Google Inc. began working on an operating system based on its Chrome Web browser.

Since then, Apple Inc.'s iPad and other tablet computers have become hot sellers. The growing popularity of tablets has raised questions about how interested consumers will be interested in buying Google-powered laptops specifically tailored for Web surfing.

Samsung Electronics Co. and Acer Inc. are making the first Chromebooks. They will sell for $349 to $499 at Best Buy and Amazon.com Inc. in the United States. The cheapest iPad sells for $499.

Acer's Chromebook, at $349, will have an 1 1 .6-inch screen display and up to six hours of battery life. Samsung's version, selling for $429 to $499, will have a 1 2.1 -inch screen and up to 8.5 hours of battery life. Both models will have keyboards, but no hard drives for storage. The machines will be like computer terminals dependent on a connection to the Internet. The laptops come with 1 6 gigabytes of flash memory - the kind found in smart phones, tablet computers and some iPods. They have slots to plug in other storage devices bought separately.

The Chromebooks also will be sold in Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Spain.

To get people to use Chromebooks, Google is offering three-year subscription plans to businesses and schools similar to how the mobile phone industry subsidizes devices up-front and makes the money back over the life of a service contract. For a monthly cost of $28 per user in businesses and government agencies and $20 per user in schools, Google provides the laptop, technical support and a warranty for the duration. Google will replace the Chromebooks at the end of the three years.

The Chromebooks' debut will intensify Google's competition with Microsoft Corp., whose Windows operating system remains the foundation of most personal computers.

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have long bemoaned that Windows computers take too long to power up and are too clunky to operate. They believe that Windows' drawbacks are discouraging people from spending even more time online, where they could click on ads sold by Google.

To address the perceived problem, Google announced its plans in July 2009 for a Chrome-based operating system that would enable computers to turn on in a matter of seconds and encourage more Web surfing.

"The complexity of managing computers is really frustrating for users out there," Brin told reporters in May during a Google conference for software developers. "It's a flawed model."

Besides attacking Microsoft's Windows franchise, Google's Chromebook also will represent another challenge to Apple, which makes Mac computers as well as ?Pads.

Google and Apple have also been engaged in a fierce competition in the mobile market. Google has joined the tablet computer craze by creating a special version of its Android software for the mobile devices. Apple sold nearly 20 million ?Pads during the tablet's first year on the market, and analysts expect people to buy tens of millions more tablets from Apple and other manufacturers during the next few years.

[Author Affiliation]

By Michael Liedtke

AP Technology Writer