In three words - Zero Maintenance, Zero Touch, and Statelessness
The big advantage of Chromebooks over iPads, Windows, and Macs in a business (and consumer) context are: Zero Maintenance, Zero Touch, and Statelessness. Their power is in the servers they connect to.
Zero Maintenance - means exactly that. The only maintenance you will ever need to do on a Chromebook is to switch it on.
Zero Touch - means that no IT Admin has to ever touch or log into a Chromebook in order to get a secure, managed, domain authenticated, networked client. The user gets a Chromebook posted to him/her from the T Admin, and it works. No configuration, no disk imaging, no application installs, no support calls.
Statelessness - This means nothing including settings is stored on your local device. If you lose, damage or have your laptop stolen, no data or settings are lost or are compromised. You simply buy or get hold of another Chromebook, log in, and continue where you left off as if nothing happened.
You clearly don't understand what Linux is. Linux is the operating system behind Android, ChromeOS, 99% of the worlds top 500 supercomputers, the majority of servers on the Internet, and most routers, set top boxes and embedded systems. Linux dominates dominates the world of servers, supercomputers, embedded systems, and mobile phone OSes. ChromeOS is just one particular customisation of Linux.
