[ZeroGravitas]

Shame really, you'd think that if you were producing a device that ran linux anyway, you'd be able to pick up a few extra sales by letting enthusiasts do their own thing with it. Since you're not paying Microsoft anything you've got a bit of wiggle room to be competitive pricewise too. (At the very least you'd think that Google employees might like something to run Goobuntu on).

[drivebyacct2]

It's all about trusting the integrity of the machine. With the signed BIOS, and the trust chain of ChromeOS, you can be quite sure that you're booting what you expect you're booting.