Walmart to start selling Chromebooks

I have a sense of Deja Vu with Chromebooks.  A few years ago we went through this with Netbooks.  I did not get it, why anyone would want to spend money on an undersized, underpowered laptop.  Roll a few years later and here we are again, this time netbooks are now called chromebooks.  As I see, only worse, at least netbooks had storage capabilities and did not require an internet connection to be useful, Chromebooks need both an internet connection to be functional at all.  

Walmart has begun selling the Chromebook in 2,800 of its approximately 4,600 U.S. stores, expanding the reach of this still-on-the-margins platform.

Staples will also be selling the Chromebook in 1,500 stores, Google said on Monday.

Chromebook has long been available on Amazon, among other online retailers, and the $249 Samsung Chromebook has been its laptop category best-seller for months.

Chromebook is also sold in Best Buy stores and in the coming months will also be available Office Depot, Office Max, Fry's and others, Google said on Monday.

Chromebook is now officially just about everywhere, and that will help educate users about the platform.

But using a Chromebook can be a jolt for a new user. Just about everything is browser-based and runs the cloud. Even a simple tool such as Notepad on Windows is not available, natively, on the Chrome OS.

But there are apps that provide Notepad-like functionality, and will save content in the cloud. Users will work with Google Apps tools, its spreadsheets and docs, and an expanding universe of cloud-based tools.

If you believe that PCs of the future will be entirely cloud-based, then Chromebook may be offering its users an inside track in operating in this new world.