Dell temporarily stopped the online sales of its Chromebook 11 for Education after the company experienced a strong consumer demand seven months after its availability in the market.
Ellen Murphy, a spokesperson for Dell said, “Due to strong demand, the Dell Chromebook 11 is currently not available for order on Dell.com. It continues to be available for our education customers and can be ordered through their sales representative.”
Murphy’s statement indicates that Dell is experiencing difficulty in meeting the orders of consumers online. The Chromebook 11 for Education became available in the market last December. The company is offering the Latitude for $899 and OptiPlex for $599. Consumers will not pay any interest if they pay the full amount within 90 days.
The Chromebook 11 is currently unavailable for sale on Dell’s website. The company did not provide a specific date as to when it will resume its online sales for individual consumers.
Individual consumers could purchase from Dell’s competitors
Technology industry observers suggested that individual consumers might end up purchasing a Chromebook from other manufacturers including Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ), Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (LON:BC94) (KRX:005935) and Toshiba Corp (TYO:6502) among others.
The starting price of Chromebooks from other manufacturers that are available online is around $200. The Chromebook is a low-cost, light-weight computer powered by the Chrome operating system of Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and integrated with chips from Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC).
In May, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) introduced highly-competitive Chromebooks from different manufacturers that will be available in September this year.
The tech giants said consumers will be able to choose from at least 20 designs of Chromebooks that support the 64-bit Chromes operating system and Intel Bay Trail-M system-on-chip (SoC). Dell is expected to release a Chromebook integrated with 4th generation Intel Core i3 processor.
Chromebook accounts 35% of commercial laptop shipments in the U.S.
Chromebooks represent 35% of all the shipments of commercial laptop in the United States year-to-date, an increase of 250% during the same period a year ago. The device also accounts 5% to 6% of the total sales of consumer laptop during the period, according to Stephen Baker, vice president, industry analysis at NPD.
via: PCWorld
