As you might have heard, Microsoft could soon be slashing the licensing fee of Windows 8.1 in order to make it more appealing to OEMs, and according to reports, to compete against the likes of Google’s Chrome OS and the Chromebooks which the operating system is being installed on. Perhaps it might be a case of too little, too late, as far as Woolworths is concerned, as the company has recently announced that they will be undertaking a huge transformation which would see Google Chrome OS devices account for 85% of the business devices used by Woolworths staff, replacing the majority of Windows products in the process.
For those unfamiliar, Woolworths is one of the largest supermarket chains in Australia. They are owned by parent company, Woolworths Limited, which in turn owns many companies in Australia including liquor shops, general merchandise stores, and smaller grocery shops aimed at different markets. In an interview with ComputerWorld, the company’s acting CIO, Damon Rees, was quoted as saying, “Embracing a Chrome device strategy in an enterprise setting has been made possible with recent advances in Citrix with its web-based delivery technology, enabling Woolworths to make the transition from legacy thick client application access to cloud like browser based delivery.”
Will the switch to Chrome OS work out in Woolworths’ favor? Or will the changes prove too drastic and could hamper productivity? What do you guys make of companies ditching a more conventional and traditional setup to something more cloud-based like Chrome OS? Is this the way of the future?