If true, the CloudBook would be the company’s answer to Google Chromebooks
Microsoft has an event planned for May 2 believed to be focused on the education market, which has long been an Apple stronghold. It’s likely new hardware will be introduced, and some Microsoft watchers believe it will be the launch for a Windows Cloud device.
Windows Cloud is rumored to be Microsoft’s answer to Google Chromebooks. It’s essentially the old Windows RT OS that failed spectacularly a few years back, except now it’s built on Windows 10 and runs apps only from the Windows Store, both Win32 apps and Universal Windows Platform Apps. RT flopped mostly because there were no apps for it and developers didn’t rush out to make any apps for it.
ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley first speculated a few weeks back that Microsoft might call the new device a “Cloud book,” and it looks like she was off by one space. Microsoft recently rolled out a collection of educational apps in the Windows Store with the ID of “cloudbook.” So maybe there is a “CloudBook” after all.
MSPowerUser claims that it knows of a device called “CloudBook” and said rumors suggest that the CloudBook will have an ARM processor, possibly the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, which Microsoft has been targeting to run x86 apps in emulation mode. But at this point, it’s all just rumor.
Another question is whether this device will be a part of the Surface line. Surface products are full Windows 10 machines for all kinds of use scenarios and are rather pricey given their high hardware specs. Surface Books are not cheap, and if Microsoft intends to target the Chromebook market with its own device, it has to be price competitive.
