Google just wrapped up its Chrome keynote at I/O 2011, during which  SVP of Chrome Sundar Pichai and Co. revealed some of the details surrounding the long-overdue launch of Chrome OS, including some pretty attractive pricing for enterprise and education users.
Pichai began by addressing some of the complaints levelled at earlier builds of Google’s new browser-only operating system, such as wonky trackpads and lacklustre Flash performance. The good news is, both have been fixed and the user experience is now better than ever. As we knew previously, Samsung and Acer are both big hardware partners for Chrome OS, and both have thrown their hat into the ring – Samsung with a 12.1″ model boasting “all-day battery”, meanwhile Acer have shown off a slightly smaller model (11.6″) with a 6.5 hour battery. The devices will be priced similarly to high-end netbooks (which is essentially what they are, rocking Intel Atom processors), with the Samsung model starting at $429, and the Acer coming in at $349.
As rumoured, Google have introduced some pretty competitive pricing for students, but also surprised the audience with a similarly cheap offer for enterprise users. For the princely sum of $20 per month per users schools can get their hands on Chromebooks (which is what Google appear to be calling Chrome-powered devices), similarly enterprise users can snap up a fleet of the new laptops for $28 per user per month. Both solutions will include an administrative back-end allowing IT departments to manage devices and users. For the monthly fee users will also get updates to both software and hardware updates. As Google point out, this is “Hardware as a service”, and we have to say it sounds awesome.
Initially the machines will be rolling out in seven countries (the USA and six European locales), and you can register your interest now at Google.com/chromebook. We’d be quick – we have a feeling there’s going to be a bit of a queue.
As is obligatory with all Google launches, the kitsch video is here.
