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Google brings high street store to London

Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - 09:21 by Graham Miller

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A new high street outlet for search giant Google has been created in London, taking up a section of an existing PC World outlet in order to promote its new range of notebooks powered by the Chrome operating system.

It may seem like a slightly odd thing for a major web-based firm to do since it makes most of its money from advertising and safe shopping online, but having a presence in the British capital will certainly help it spread the word about its latest technological advances.

The so-called Chromebooks are produced by a number of manufacturing partners but Samsung has been chosen as the main proponent of the new high street push.

Google UK's Arvind Desikan, explained that the PC World mini-store represents Google's first ever entry into the high street market, which indicates just how significant it is in the history of the firm.

The store may become something of a 'try before you buy' setup, which is something that Mr Desikan and his colleagues totally accept and in fact seem to embrace.

Consumers will be encouraged to come in and have a go on the various Chromebook laptops on offer. They can of course head home and use safe shopping online to find the best price on the Series 5 notebooks, which run the fresh operating system, but getting to grips with it at first had might help Google and Samsung sell a few more units.

The first Chromebook devices hit the UK nearly four months ago, so Google's sluggish creation of the high street store seems slightly incongruous if its intention was to ride the initial wave of buzz surrounding the device. However, despite a turbulent high street market, this is a company that knows how to exploit all the angles in order to forge ahead with business.