

Chromebook with management console



A collaboration between Google and VMware may remove a huge barrier to chromebook adoption in the enterprise by enabling legacy Windows applications to run on the Chrome OS machines.Chromebooks already offer strong upside for businesses with their low cost, easy management, and inherent OS-level security, and NPD says that chromebooks are already responsible for some 21% of all notebook sales in the commercial channel.However, the inability to run legacy Windows applications has been a difficult problem to overcome for Chrome OS computers. Let’s face it, if you work in a professional setting of any kind, you’re going to have to open, edit, and create documents and files that require Windows-based software at some point.But Google and VMware are coming together to offer a Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS), running those Windows applications and desktops virtually with VMware Horizon View. For now, this will be an on-premise service, but it will soon be available as a fully managed subscription service at some point in the relatively near future.Being able to run Windows from a chromebook is a huge deal, and there’s no two ways about it. At this point, this powerful tool is obviously designed for enterprises and not individual users, but that will further negatively impact PC sales as more companies choose chromebooks over traditional desktops and notebooks.