Chromebook May Soon Allow Dual Boot With Windows 10 - Olmec Skip to main content

Chromebook May Soon Allow Dual Boot With Windows 10

By January 9, 2019June 2nd, 2022Technology News

Chromebooks are fun, cool machines that are incredibly popular with students, hipsters, artists, and the like. However, the company hasn’t been able to penetrate the Enterprise market with their product.  It’s not hard to understand why.

Overwhelmingly, businesses use Windows-based machines.  Many of the applications businesses rely on simply won’t work on a Chromebook, and there’s no viable equivalent.  Even if there was, why bother switching when what you have is working?

It’s a fair point, and Google is taking steps to remove that objection to giving their Chromebooks a try in the Enterprise environment.  The company is currently working on a dual boot Chromebook that will allow users to select either Windows 10 or ChromeOS at startup.

It’s a lot harder than you might think.  Unlike Linux, which can coexist on the machine with ChromeOS, allowing users to run both operating systems at once if you like, that’s simply not possible with Windows.  You can run one or the other, but you can’t run them both at the same time.

It’s an interesting move, but industry insiders don’t expect the change to boost Chromebook’s Enterprise footprint much.  True, if an employee has a Chromebook at home and sometimes does work on it, the dual boot option will make that easier to do. Honestly though, the Chromebook doesn’t bring anything new or terribly useful to the Enterprise environment.  Until and unless that changes, having a Chromebook that’s capable of running Windows 10 is interesting, but also unlikely to change many minds.

Even so, if you have employees who have been complaining that they can’t use their Chromebook to do work for your company, let them know that’s soon to be changing.  It’s a small thing, and it won’t impact a huge swath of the people you employ, but it might bring smiles to a few faces at your firm and improve morale.  That’s never a bad thing.

Chris Forte

Chris Forte, President and CEO of Olmec Systems, has been in the MSP workspace for the past 25 years. Chris earned his Master’s Degree from West Virginia University, graduating Magna Cum Laude. He was a past member of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, a current member of the New Jersey Power Partners and Executive Association of New Jersey, where he has previously served on its board of directors. In his spare time, Chris enjoys traveling with his family. He also admits to being a struggling golfer and avid watcher of college football and basketball. He currently lives in Boonton Township, NJ with his wife, two daughters, son, and black lab Luna.