How ChromeOS Dramatically Simplifies Enterprise Security

By Rich Campagna, Chief Marketing Officer, Bitglass

Google's Chromebooks have enjoyed significant adoption in education, but have seen very little interest in the enterprise until recently. According to Gartner's Peter Firstbrook in Securing Chromebooks in the Enterprise (6 March 2018), a survey of more than 700 respondents showed that nearly half of organizations will definitely purchase or probably will purchase Chromebooks by EOY 2017. And Google has started developing an impressive list of case studies, including Whirlpool, Netflix, Pinterest, the Better Business Bureau, and more.

And why wouldn't this trend continue? As the enterprise adopts cloud en masse, more and more applications are available anywhere through a browser - obviating the need for a full OS running legacy applications. Additionally, Chromebooks can represent a large cost savings - not only in terms of a lower up-front cost of hardware, but lower ongoing maintenance and helpdesk costs as well.

With this shift comes a very different approach to security. Since Chrome OS is hardened and locked down, the need to secure the endpoint diminishes, potentially saving a lot of time and money. At the same time, the primary storage mechanism shifts from the device to the cloud, meaning that the need to secure data in cloud applications, like G Suite, with a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) becomes paramount. Fortunately, the CASB market has matured substantially in recent years, and is now widely viewed as "ready for primetime."

Overall, the outlook for Chromebooks in the enterprise is positive, with a very real possibility of dramatically simplifying security. Now, instead of patching and protecting thousands of laptops, the focus shift towards protecting data in a relatively small number of cloud applications. Quite the improvement!