I was in Starbucks the other day and a couple of late-middle age Librarians were sat at an adjacent table (I couldn't tell if they were from the local library, or the local university), both with the 11 inch Samsung Chromebook (2012). These were clearly issued by their employer (and quite recently by the sounds of it), although one had been decked out with a bright pink rubberised skin.
After a few minutes of negotiation they were both connected to the free wi-fi and proceeded with a meeting where they collaboratively edited a set of Google Docs and Spreadsheets, whilst sat on opposite sides of same the table (the docs were the focus of their meeting).
There are many use-cases for Chromebooks (I also have the same Samsung which I use for testing), but one is certainly employers managing large portfolios of standardised desktops used by 'information workers', and which are primarily used for editing spreadsheets and text documents, and surfing the web & using web apps (one might argue that these are largely indistinguishable from students, which is a another sector that Google has targeted).
It may have been that they would have been using Google Drive on their old (presumably) Windows machines, but I suspect that what was likely an economic decision for their employer (the Samsungs are £200 in the UK when bought through Amazon, likely much cheaper when bought in bulk), is also driving uptake of Drive (and web apps in general).
What was interesting from my point of view - as a developer - was that here were two reasonably tech-savvy 'civilians' using what is a relatively limited (by design) technology, and doing so in a very natural and fluid way. There was no mention of either the hardware or the OS and its limitations, they just went about their business without any hiccups or stumbles over the tools they were using.
People who question the Chromebook programme - they're just a browser, you can already do the same on any desktop, etc - are all making very valid points. But in many situations the question isn't what magical things can we make this device do, but rather what is the least (both in terms of cost, but also the scope of things that can go wrong) we can provide and still have our people function effectively. Google appear to be taking a bottom up approach to answering this question: slowly adding functionality to ChromeOS until it meets the majority of use cases the majority of the time. The grey area between Chrome the OS and Chrome the Browser is by design: If you find that you are increasingly living in Chrome on the desktop, maybe your next machine will be a Chromebook.