Rent-to-own News

Rent-to-own News - Cloud-friendly Chromebooks will give Microsoft run for the money

May 12, 2011

Google’s new monthly-subscribed, web-only netbooks have got early customers trumpeting their simplicity, low cost and speed which could pose an immediate threat to Microsoft's business computing dominance.

Google announced Wednesday, its Chromebook for Business -- first from Samsung and Acer’s new web-centric PCs -- can be monthly subscribed at $28/user for businesses and $20/user for schools.

 

Google says the model may save companies 50 percent a year over current costs.

 

“The time has finally come to sweep the desktop clean with a device designed from the beginning for the cloud,” Google’s president of its enterprise efforts, Dave Girouard, told Wired. He noted online applications and cloud computing are now firmly accepted as the future.

That’s a direct threat to Microsoft and its long dominance of the enterprise, corporate and small- and medium-size business market.

And that threat is coming in the form of cheap laptops you can’t install software on, and which don’t even have ethernet connections.

Chromebooks will be available online from June 15 in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Spain In the U.S., Chromebooks will be available from Amazon and Best Buy and internationally from leading retailers.

With the launch of Chromebook , booting will be done in eight seconds and connecting to a wireless network or loading a website will just take a few minutes, according to International Business Times.

 

About APRO
The Association of Progressive Rental Organizations is the official voice of the rent-to-own industry and the most accurate and trustworthy source of rent-to-own news in the industry. Founded in 1980, APRO is the national, nonprofit trade association advocating and representing the rent-to-own industry before the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, courts, media and the public.

For more information, visit www.rtohq.org.




2012 APRO Convention and Trade Show

July 24-26, Memphis, TN

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From the TRIB Group/BrandSource 2011 Convention and Buy Fair, Orlando, Feb. 20-23 Album
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RTOHQ: The Magazine
RTOHQ: The Magazine is the Association of Progressive Rental Organizations' award-winning rent-to-own industry magazine, and it's available here.

CLICK HERE FOR OUR DIGITAL RTOHQ: THE MAGAZINE

 

RTOHQ: The Magazine’s upgraded digital format

APRO's new, mobile-ready magazine is now available in addition to our print edition. The digital format provides the same informative content as our printed magazine, but also offers tools to make the reading experience more enriching. Access the table of contents page with one click or tap. Get additional information from advertisers by clicking on the links in their ads. The interface is easy to navigate and requires no special app—read our magazine on your computer, digital table or smartphone. Click here to access the digital version of RTOHQ: The Magazine March-April 2012.

 

 

A New Rent-to-Own Experience

by Neil Ferguson

Here’s the lowdown on APRO’s 2012 Convention and Trade Show, July 24-26 in Memphis. The RTO industry’s big event will offer many valuable experiences, including insights on how to turn your stores into “experiences”–the good kind for consumers

 

Who Is Your Competition?

by Bill Keese

In order to expand your customer base, you can learn a lot by observing your competitors. But first, you need to figure out just who they are. If you think your only competition is the rent-to-own store down the street, you’re not considering the bigger picture. APRO’s executive director offers a big-picture perspective.

 

A Review of Online Customer Complaints

by Ed Winn III

While rent-to-own companies have not cornered the market on negative reviews posted on consumer complaint websites, it’s no surprise that there are cyberspace beefs against RTO. APRO’s general counsel reviews some of them in search of a pattern and he considers appropriate response to online complaints.

 

Rent-to-Own Families, Part VIII

by Kristen Card

Our series of family-run rent-to-own businesses continues with profiles of the Homeiers in Kansas and two Texas-based sets of kindred colleagues, the Spangles and the Weisblatts.

 

 

Future issues of APRO's magazine will be available in this same new format. Click here to access past issues that are not yet archived in the new interface.

 

Association of Progressive Rental Organizations
1504 Robin Hood Trail
Austin, Texas 78703
800/204-2776, ext. 103
Fax 512/794-0097