Microsoft, Acer prep new ‘Cloudbooks’ to take on Google’s Chromebook

For the past few years, Google has been pushing its idea of a low-cost, web-connected PC that offered minimum offline capability but was backed up by a suite of online applications courtesy of Google’s cloud ecosystem. 




The idea of thin-client PCs with fat-client capabilities has slowly taken off, helped by the rock-bottom price on many of these systems (Chromebooks can be had for as little as $149.) Now it seems that Microsoft wants to challenge Google’s Chromebook with a project of its own, courtesy of Acer. 

We don’t know much about the Cloudbook, yet, save for its $169 price and 11-inch form factor, but recent events suggest Acer is hunting desperately for a new revenue driver. The company didn’t put out a full press release for its latest earnings, but it did note that its revenue fell 27.6% thanks to weakened demand in the Chinese market (the Chinese stock market has been in free-fall in recent days, which hasn’t really helped matters). 

The company reportedly believes that a combination of Chromebook-style systems and higher-end gaming PCs can help restore it to profitability, but analysts that combed through the company’s Chinese statements report that its quarterly revenue may have just been the lowest since 2006.