Google will soon officially let you turn your old laptops into Chromebooks
Chromebooks are an ever-intriguing part of the laptop market, enticing people with their simplicity and ease of use, with the restrictions that come with them falling away all the time.
One area they can be really helpful in is education and enterprise, where people don't really need much outside their browser to get by on. That was the focus of Neverware, a company that Google went ahead and bought recently - it made a piece of software called CloudReady, which could turn your old PC or Mac into a Chromebook.
Neverware's post announcing the purchase has some interesting tidbits about how Google's planning to incorporate its ideas and software, though, including the central fact that "CloudReady will become an official Chrome OS offering" over time, meaning that Google's bringing it fully on board.
Given that CloudReady is a paid bit of software, and that there are plenty of users with existing subscriptions, we wouldn't imagine that Google will just chuck this out there as a free option for anyone with an old computer lying around that they think could be streamlined.
Still, with Google's weight of resources behind it you could see the tool attracting a wider audience than it might have managed so far, especially once that official release happens. This also means that you'll presumably eventually be able to use these converted Chromebooks as if they were native to Chrome OS completely - letting you, for example, install Android apps, something that's still restricted at the moment.
That's an interesting prospect, so it'll certainly be worth watching how Google manages this process in the months and years to come.
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