Chromebooks are gettinh an additional one year of support as Google Inc. announced an extension of its guarantee to provide security patches and update fixes to the devices to five years.
Chromebooks — computers designed to run Google’s Chrome operating system — are increasingly becoming popular among consumers and enterprise users largely because they are full-featured laptops that are cheaper than other machines.
Under Google’s Chrome OS End of Life Policy, Chrome devices receive automatic updates regularly to improve the performance of the devices and software. The policy covers devices for four years from sale.
However, when devices reach End of Life, it is considered obsolete and automatic updates from Google are no longer guaranteed.
Last week, Google said it was adding an extra year of support.
“EOL dates may be pushed later than the initial date published, but will never be sooner than listed, which will be at least a minimum of five years from launch of the hardware,” Google said under its EOL policy.
Below is the list of Chrome devices and their EOL dates
Chromebook End of Life List
Google is pushing 5 years only because they are worried that enterprise customers won’t want the short life span of the typical Linux OS. I think some are also worried that the OS may not survive 5 years as sales haven’t been that great.