Google is looking to help alleviate the ever-rising costs of a college education through a new initiative centered around its Chrome OS. According to a report by Forbes magazine, the search giant will begin renting laptops running the Google Chrome OS to college students for $20 a month.
The $20 price tag will include the cost of the laptop as well as a productivity software bundle including GMail and Google Docs. Presumably, students will have to rent the laptops through colleges that have a deal in place with Google. The company sells its productivity suite and services to institutions and businesses.
Google's been looking to break the hold Microsoft has over the corporate and educational world with its Office and Outlook products for years, and this may be its best method to topple the Redmond, Wash. giant. A major roadblock at the moment, however, is the ability for users of Google services to use them while offline. Google execs told Forbes that they're "very close to solving that problem."
[Forbes via ReadWriteWeb]
