In the race to capture the education market in the US, Microsoft has launched a broad education initiative aimed at catching up to Google.
Silicon Valley’s technology giants are engaged in heated competition for business in primary and secondary schools in the US – a technology market that analysts say could balloon to $21 billion by 2020. Microsoft still has a strong presence in classrooms worldwide; however rival Google has pulled ahead in the crucial US market: Its lower-cost laptops, called Chromebooks, accounted for 58% of the 12.6 million devices sold to American schools last year, according to research firm Futuresource Consulting. Microsoft Windows devices accounted for 21.6%.
Apart from the dollars at stake, the education market is attractive to technology firms because it offers an opportunity to gain a following among students early on. “The second-order effects of education, of being relevant in education, are going to be very, very key for us”, said Satya Nadella, Chief Executive of Microsoft. “The devices the kids take to their school, or to their college, is going to be influenced by what they were familiar with.”
Microsoft is focusing on making its products more attractive to school administrators, students and teachers in various ways. It has developed a new student version of Windows, modified its Office applications, and created a new Surface laptop for schools, to cite a few examples. “I am not going to predict that they are going to take back the entire market or anything like that, but this is the best move that I could have seen them making against Chromebooks”, said J. P. Gownder, a technology analyst at Forrester Research.
Apple has also been spurred by Google’s success in the education market. Like Microsoft, it has experienced a decline in shipments of iPads and Mac laptops to schools. Mobile shipments fell to 19% in the US last year. The company recently introduced an iPad management app called Classroom, along with lower pricing for educational institutions on its newest iPad model.
Key to Google’s success in schools, particularly over the past four years, is a connected system of free classroom apps, Chromebooks, and a web-based console for managing student devices. It has also addressed a need that was not being met by Microsoft: the classroom management system. “The challenge for Microsoft is that it did not seem to have a coherent strategy”, said Hal Friedlander, former Chief Information Officer of the New York City Department of Education and current Chief Executive of the non-profit Technology for Education Consortium.
Microsoft’s efforts are starting to pay off, the New York Times reports. Officials at Omaha Public Schools, which spends about $570,000 annually on software and is investing $8 million to buy devices, welcomed the company’s more comprehensive approach. About 200 teachers have completed Microsoft’s professional development program, and some are already using the Microsoft Teams chat service. “Now it’s not four or five different experiences based on which app you are using”, said Rob Dickson, Executive Director of Information Management Services for Omaha Public Schools. “It’s a single app with all those experiences within it.”
