This is a guest post by Sachin.

Chromebooks are supported by the strength of Google. Even when their servers crashed last year, they used their own tape managed offsite backup service and disaster recovery storage and rescue plan to have all their data up and running in a matter of hours. Chromebooks might be the solution for your company’s IT needs.

Chromebooks are selling fast in the US. The deals Google is willing to do are just too good for Schools. It is easy to understand when schools have been spending thousands of dollars on machines and tablets for years when Google has offered the baseline Chromebook for one student at 20 dollars a month over 3 years. If you are still running your company with personal productivity tools and business software that requires installation on each machine, converting to Google’s device could be a very good money saving solution for your business. Chromebooks don’t have an operating system as such. They access Google Applications and other online applications through the Chrome browser, and that is all there is to it. Chromebooks can make managing your IT for business very simple indeed. Here is a look at the reasons why.

• Software management. No software or operating system, actually reside on the machines. Most businesses are turning to client-server based applications anyway. When using browser-based business applications you can still use Chromebooks, and for other applications, the Google Application Store is loaded with online applications for use. Outside of that, you can use any online application. Facebook is an online application. Most people just don’t realise it.

• Duplicates. Converting your company’s and your people’s documents over to Google Documents might not be a bad idea. Google Documents and files reside on Google servers, and are accessed through Google Accounts. As many people as the owner desires can access a single Google Document. There is no duplication of documents, and there is no emailing of documents for different users to work on. Collaboration is the key word, here.

• Storage safety. If you are using Google Documents, you know you documents are safe. The one time Google did have a major server disaster; they had all data back up and running on their servers from a tape managed offsite backup service. You could save on the cost of your own disaster recovery storage and rescue plan. If you are a smaller business, you don’t have to worry that your staff are not backing up all their work daily.

• Information security. File access and the ability to modify those files, is controlled by the owner with Google Documents. You know you files and documents are safe. You can use browser-based business solutions just as any other company would be. This is the best, and the only way to keep your information secure. There is no saving of documents and files on Chromebooks. They act like terminals to the Internet, or terminals to your database over the Internet.

• Device control. With Chromebooks, you remove the need to manage and maintain your company’s computers. You don’t have to worry about software licensing or operating system updates. You don’t have to worry about what is installed on them because applications do not reside on the device. Your IT guy will be out of a job, but you will be saving a lot of time and money with device management and control.

As web-based client-server applications increase in popularity, and as we are looking for more centralised data and device control in our businesses, while we need reduced IT costs, Chromebooks are certainly an excellent option for business. The number of Google specific applications to support business is also on the rise. You might be surprised at what is available.