Today, Google and its hardware partners Acer, HP, and Samsung will begin selling Chromebooks in six new countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands. And in the U.S., Chromebooks will now be available at over 1,000 Best Buy stores nationally, which doubles the number of physical stores that Google’s  the-browser-is-the-operating-system laptops are sold in.

International pricing will be roughly similar to the U.S., with Canada getting Chromebooks at $250-330, and $300-350 in Australia. But expect to pay a little more in Europe — in France and Germany, they’ll start at around 300 euros, which is close to $400 U.S.

It’s not exactly $99 education pricing, but it’s still fairly cheap.

Google’s first international expansion with Chromebooks to the UK appears to have been a success. Google reported that Chromebook accounts for more than 10 percent of laptop sales in leading UK electronics retailers Currys and PC World.

Google recently released a high-end touchscreen Chromebook for $1,299, which is not being released internationally, and with HP the biggest Chromebook yet, a 14″ model.

By Jaleh Bisharat, VP of Marketing, oDesk (the world’s largest online workplace)

Just one week after Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer issued her ‘work-in-the-office-only’ policy, Best Buy is dominating a new wave of headlines by following in her footsteps — delivering a one-two punch to the flexible work movement.

Best Buy, which was considered a trailblazer of flexible work through its popular Results-Only-Work-Environment (or “ROWE”) program, has revoked telecommuting privileges for some 4,000 non-store employees. Now, remote work will happen by exception and with managerial approval.

At Yahoo reportedly nobody is exempt, not even those who were hired with the understanding that they could work from home, a coffee shop, a co-working space, or wherever else they could find a productive environment to contribute from afar.

In the age of Skype, Google Docs, Dropbox and oDesk (where I work) these are pretty stunning pronouncements from one of the industry’s most progressive companies, and from Marissa Mayer, one of Silicon Valley’s most closely watched working Moms.

Where did it come from?

It seems that a practice presumably designed to attract talent is arousing suspicion. Are remote employees working from home, taking their children to the park or doing a bit of both?

It’s certainly true that working near crying babies is neither productive for the company, nor good for their harried professional moms.

But must we throw out the baby with the bathwater by ordering everyone back into the office? Must we go back to limiting ourselves to the talent that happens to reside within 25 miles of the office and the people who sit in a cubicle during traditional business hours?

Or is it time to reflect on how we can best harness talent, regardless of where it happens to be?

I know what it is like to be a working Mom, with small children blooming at home while I was tucked away in an office across town (in fact I blogged about it here). I also know what it is like to manage a team that is sometimes remote, because here at oDesk we have 120 employees in-house and 250 contractors around the world.

Some of my favorite tips for work-anywhere teams are as follows:

1. Expect a professional environment, wherever it is
If you wouldn’t have a baby in your office, then think twice about allowing a situation in which the employee is simultaneously babysitting. In most cases, this is not a recipe for producing exceptional work.

Workers don’t have to be in a cubicle, but they do need a space in which they can conduct professional business without distractions.

2. Clarify the boundaries
Develop a crisp understanding of the employee’s limits. One exceptionally talented working Mom I hired in the past, for example, had to pick up her young daughter at 3 pm. We accommodated the shorter but clearly stated in-office hours. In return, she made a tremendous impact on our business. I suspect she was so extraordinarily productive because she was free of guilt and worry, as well as grateful for the opportunity. She is now a well-respected leader in Silicon Valley.

3. Communicate relentlessly
Make sure everyone on your team, remote or local, understands what s/he need to accomplish, when it is due and how s/he will be measured. Put it in writing; it forces you to be crisp and removes any doubt as to what is expected. Conduct frequent status check-ins to review accomplishments, upcoming goals and any milestones or red flags.

4. Measure people by the quality of their results
Agree on measurable goals. This might be increased sales, higher levels of customer satisfaction, a well-designed product or whatever else moves the needle for your business.

If the goal is met, what matters least is where the work happened, or when it happened — as long as it was completed on time.

Some of the very best employees have a meaningful impact on the business because they deliver quality results in record time. They know how to push past “90% finished” and cross the finish line. They use ruthless prioritization to focus on what makes a difference to the business.

These people are not usually the ones who spend the most time in their cubicles. They may be working in their bunny slippers, after their children are in bed.

5. Embrace an integrated culture
At oDesk, we are avid users of collaboration technologies including Skype, Dropbox and Google Docs. Each conference room is equipped with large monitors so we can integrate remote remote participates into meetings via Skype or Google Hangouts.

We have developed an etiquette for how we work as virtual teams. Each meeting begins with an inquiry as to who is remote that day so we can bring them in via Skype or Google Hangouts. Supporting documents are distributed in advance. We greet team members who enter the meeting on a screen as warmly as we greet people in the room. A remote person wishing to speak is given priority.

Most companies invest sizable resources to find and attract the people who are most brilliant in their contributions. Should we turn our backs on exceptional flex workers who make up a large portion of our population? Or should we put our energy into designing ways to make them — and ultimately our businesses — more successful?

What do you think?

photo credit: ekai via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The iPhone 5 is already the most popular phone of the season, but Best Buy is making it a whole lot more enticing.

The bog box retailer is shaving $50 off the price of Apple’s latest device, which will start at $149 on a two-year contract. More expensive models are affected by the deal as well, with the 32GB and 64GB versions running for $249 and $349 respectively. (The price cut also extends to last year’s iPhone 4S, which runs as low as $50 on contract.)

You’ll want to keep a few things in mind, however. For one, the deal only runs until January, and there’s a limit of two devices per person. Best Buy is also limiting which devices are available for shipping, which may be a deal-breaker depending on how far you are from the nearest store.

With the holiday shopping season in full force now, Best Buy is doing all it can to keep up with Amazon, which, for many consumers,  has become the go-to destination for electronics shopping. But by cutting the price of the iPhone 5, Best Buy is clearly trying to turn that around in the most buzz-worthy way possible.

Let the holiday pricing wars begin.

No longer content to serve as a showroom for gadgets that consumers go on to buy from online competitors, Target committed today to match the prices of items offered at rival online retailers for the bulk of the holiday shopping season.

Speaking at a press event in New York City, Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel said the company would match the online prices offered by Amazon, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Toys ‘R’ Us, and Babies ‘R’ Us between Nov. 1 and Dec. 16.

“Target’s holiday plans are built around an outstanding shopping experience, exclusive merchandise and competitive prices,” Steinhafel said in a statement. “Our guests will be able to shop with confidence this holiday season knowing that we are intensely focused on providing them the right merchandise at the right price.”

The new policy represents a shift in thinking for the big-brand retailer, which historically matched print ad prices for local competitors. The move appears to be a defensive tactic meant to keep deal-hungry shoppers from buying elsewhere online or driving to the nearest Best Buy. Last week, Best Buy said that it plans to match the online prices of its competitors.

The effort falls within Target’s broader push to keep the retailer top of mind — online or off — this holiday season. The company is currently piloting a same-day delivery service powered by eBay Now. Target is also investing heavily in digital and mobile initiatives with iPad circulars, integration with Apple’s Passbook, and in-store QR code purchase and ship options.

Details about the temporary matching program will be available at Target.com/morereasons later this month.

[via Reuters]

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Conventional wisdom nowadays might suggest that Apple’s iPhone 4S is “the best smartphone ever.”

But that’s not the case if you ask Siri, the voice assistant software installed on the 4S. Strangely enough, Siri answers the question by pointing to Nokia’s Lumia 900, as The Next Web first spotted.

We also tested Siri, and it gave us this humorous result for the question “What is the best smartphone ever?” The screenshot to the right is from one of our staffers with an iPhone 4S. The answers for “What is the best smartphone ever” vs “What is the best smart phone ever” vs “What is the best smartphone” are all different. Not every staff with an iPhone was able to repeat this result, however.

The reason Siri gives this answer should be obvious. Siri pulls quite a bit of its information from the Wolfram Alpha answer engine, which, in this case, used its “customer review average” for its results. Run the same question by Wolfram Alpha’s online page and you’ll get the exact same response.

What’s really interesting here is that Apple’s iPhone doesn’t even appear in the top ten of Wolfram Alpha’s results. The 4S is no. 13, even though it has received the same average rating as 12 phones above it. In contrast, devices like the Samsung Galaxy Attain 4G and, more inexplicably, the HP TouchPad — which is a tablet — take the top spots. That’s a pretty egregious error for a service that says it provides expert-level knowledge.

So what gives? Where does Wolfram Alpha itself get this information from? Source information for the query points to the Wolfram Alpha knowledgebase as the primary source, and Best Buy’s website as a background source. And that’s where the the trail ends. We’ve reached out to Wolfram Alpha for some more information on this and will update this article when the team responds.

Odd results aside, the news is heartening in its own way, as it shows that Apple didn’t attempt to tweak the answer to what is likely an oft-asked question.

Other variations of it are, on the other hand, a bit more in line from what we’ve come to expect from Siri’s more witty side.

“What’s the best smartphone on the market?”, for example, gets a coy  ”You’re kidding right?” in response, while asking “What’s the best smartphone elicits, “Wait. There are other smartphones?”. Those results, of course, don’t answer the question, which might frustrate owners looking for an actual, sincere answer.

In any case, the lesson here is that, if you are looking for device recommendations, Siri and Wolfram Alpha probably aren’t your best sources. If you are looking for smartphone rankings averaged by outlet, we’d recommend checking out Gdgt.

Siri screenshot: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat