So Google have announced they will be opening retail stores, or at the very least, concessions inside IT shops.

I’ve talked about the concept of brand showrooms in the past, and Google are reconfirming this prediction.

Why are Chromebooks so expensive? The specs of a Chromebook doesn’t need to be particularly high, and the Operating System and software is available for free on Windows laptops.

Google are trying to compete with Apple on a mobile phone (iPhone v Android) and tablet (iPad v Android) level, where the competing products are becoming ever closer aligned as both sets of products mature. However on a laptop basis, the products are completely different.

Google are purely cloud focussed, with all applications HTML/ browser based and Apple users are still more than happy using downloadable native applications (think iWork/ Office and photo/ video editing applications). Even Google’s answer to photo editing, Picasa, is still a downloadable application – which raises the question of whether it will work on a Chromebook.

It’s interesting how the likes of successful Internet retailers such as Amazon and ASOS have steered away from physical outlets, and whether they are watching technology consumer brands such as Apple and now Google (not sure they have ever been classed as that before) to see how long before whether they shut down their super trendy stores in the near future.

Photo courtesy of ping ping on Flickr.