With Chrome OS Flex, Look Before You Leap

Google made news with its "Chrome OS Flex" offering, which turns a PC into a Chromebook.

Some like the idea, seeing a way to reduce licensing costs. Others like the idea because it offers simpler administration. Yet others see it as a way of using older PCs that cannot migrate to Windows 11. 

Before committing to a conversion, consider:

Chrome OS Flex may not run on your PCs Chrome OS Flex works on some PCs but not all PCs. Google has a list of supported PCs, and the list is rather thin. Google rates target PCs with one of three classifications: "Certified", "Expect minor issues", and "Expect major issues". Google does not explain the difference between major and minor, but let's assume that major issues would be such that the Chrome experience would be poor and not productive.

Microsoft has a large knowledge base of hardware and device drivers. Google may be building such a knowledge base, but its current set of knowledge is much smaller than Microsoft's. The result is that Chrome OS Flex can run on a limited number of PC models.

Your employees may dislike the idea The introduction of new technology is tricky from a management perspective. Some employees will welcome Chrome OS Flex, and others will want to remain on the old, familiar system. If your roll-out is limited, some of the employees in the "stay on the old OS" group will feel relieved, and others may feel left out.

My recommendation is to communicate your plans well in advance, and focus on the ideas of efficiency and reduced costs. Avoid the notion of Chrome OS as a reward or a perk, and talk about it as simply another tool for the office.

Google is not Microsoft Switching from Windows to Chrome OS Flex means changing a core relationship from Microsoft to Google. Microsoft has a long history of supporting technologies and products; Google has the opposite. (There are web sites dedicated to the "Google graveyard".)

Google may drop the Google OS Flex offering at any time, and not provide a successor product. (If they do, your best path forward may be to replace the PCs running Google OS Flex with Chromebooks, which should provide the same capabilities as the PCs.)

Look before you leap My point is not to dissuade you from Google's Chrome OS Flex offering. Rather, I suggest that you consider carefully the benefits and risks of such a move. As part of your evaluation, I suggest a pilot project, moving some PCs (and employees) to the new OS. I also suggest that you compile an inventory of applications that run locally -- that is on your PCs, not on the web or in the cloud. Those applications cannot run on Chrome OS Flex, or on regular Chromebooks.

It may be possible to replace local applications with web-based applications, or cloud-based applications, but such replacements are projects themselves. You may want to start with a pilot project for Chrome OS Flex, and then migrate PC-based applications to the web or cloud, and then migrate other employees to Chrome OS. Or not -- a hybrid solution with some PCs running Windows (or mac os) and other PCs running Chrome OS Flex is possible.

Whatever your choose to do, I suggest that you think, communicate, evaluate, and then decide.