It"s no secret that Google is vying for a share of the enterprise and education market through its affordable Chromebooks running ChromeOS. However, since both these sectors are heavily dominated by Windows, and Microsoft in general, this has been an uphill battle, particularly in the enterprise space. To work around this problem, Google has now relaunched Cameyo, in a bid to get customers to switch over to ChromeOS.
As noted by The Verge, Google has relaunched Cameyo as "Cameyo by Google". Some of you may recall, Google acquired Cameyo back in 2024. The Virtual Application Delivery (VAD) service enables businesses using Chromebooks to stream Windows apps on their hardware. These apps are run as web apps, which means that they become platform-agnostic and customers are no longer bound to Microsoft"s ecosystem, at least in this space.
Google has boasted that Cameyo is now more efficient in terms of switching between virtual desktop environments, so that the entire desktop environment isn"t virtualized. This means that you can run various Microsoft and Google apps simultaneously. The firm noted that:
For years, the primary blocker for deeper enterprise adoption of ChromeOS has always been the ‘app gap’ — the persistent need to access a few remaining Windows applications within an organization. Now, teams can move to a more modern, collaborative productivity suite that was built for the web, and they can still access any specialized Windows apps that their workflows still depend on.
It is certainly an interesting move, to say the least. Some Chromebooks are relatively cheap, but organizations are hesitant to purchase the hardware because they are entrenched in Microsoft"s ecosystem. A service like Cameyo should at least let them ponder the option of buying Chromebooks for most work and then virtualize Windows apps when needed. It remains to be seen if this will make a sizeable dent in Windows" market share.