Is Microsoft ceding K12 to inferior devices?

October 3, 2016 John Obeto

Meaning Windows and associated services?

I certainly hope not!

The Catholic parochial schools in this area are well vested in all things technology.

More than that, they make sure that their students are required to use these devices.

Sounds good so far, right?

Except, get this, the required platforms and devices are iPads and…gasp!.....Chromebooks!

Yes, iPads and Chromebooks!

You can just imagine how verklempt I was when I was told I would have to buy iPads and a Chromebook.

I bought the iPads.

I just couldn’t pull the trigger on a Chromebook. Sadly, HP didn’t have a worthy Chromebook at the time, and I certainly wouldn’t pollute my internal network with the crap from other Chromebook OEMS.

The scary thing is, the same schools use these devices to connect to Microsoft's services, using Office 365 for Education (or whatever it is called!) for their messaging and collab, and Microsoft Office for their productivity applications.

Speaking separately to the head techdroids at the schools my kids attend, I was informed by them that a primary reason was the fact that the regional K12 players didn’t push PCs.

Moreover, I was told, the tablets out there – 2 schools – didn’t have a good enough MDM suite to work well in the education space, and most importantly, none of the PC OEMs had devices cheap enough, and with consistent enough quality to place. Obviously, these yum-yums hadn’t done their homework.

With the Chromebooks, the situation was much worse: the VAR came in with an entire hardware +software + MDM solution built around albeit crappy Chromebooks. No PC solution providers came up with similar solutions. Since the techdroid at that location wasn’t super techy, he leapt at the lifeline.

Think about this: these kids are going to grow up using non-Windows products until college!

I think someone on the Microsoft Education team has some ‘splaining to do!

I think there is a massive opportunity for Microsoft-focused VARs who target the education market – sadly, we don’t Sad smile - to take share from these low-hanging fruit.

Follow @johnobeto