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Education Google

Will Chromebooks Someday Threaten Windows? (itworld.com) 219

"There are signs that Chromebooks are a bigger long-term threat to Microsoft than you might imagine," reports ITWorld, arguing that "long term, they'll likely be a serious competitor." The reason? Chromebooks sell big in education. They've unseated the Mac in schools. Two years ago, for the first time, Chromebooks outsold Macs in schools. Schools are a great market for Google, but Chromebooks are also Trojan horses. Children and teens use them for schoolwork and more. And when they get Chromebooks, they also get free subscriptions to Google's G suite of apps. If kids grow up using G Suite and Chromebooks, there's a reasonable chance they'll use them when they get older.

Where I live, in Cambridge, Mass., the public Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School gives out free Chromebooks to every one of the more than 2,000 teens in the school, in a bid to close the digital divide between families who can afford to buy computers for their children and those who can't... Cambridge isn't unique. According to a 2017 article in The New York Times, "More than half the nation's primary- and secondary-school students -- more than 30 million children -- use Google education apps like Gmail and Docs... And Chromebooks, Google-powered laptops that initially struggled to find a purpose, are now a powerhouse in America's schools. Today they account for more than half the mobile devices shipped to schools...."

When students graduate, Google makes it easy for them to move all their mail and documents from their school accounts to their personal accounts. And schools sometimes even act as inadvertent salespeople for Google. The Times reports that some schools tell graduating seniors to move all their documents from their school to their personal accounts... The upshot of all this? Windows hardware continues to rule in enterprises. But Chromebooks may one day prove a serious competitor, as students make their way into the workforce.

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Will Chromebooks Someday Threaten Windows?

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  • by redback ( 15527 ) on Sunday October 07, 2018 @06:39AM (#57440616)

    As if kids fresh out of school have any power to challenge the status quo of corporate IT

    • by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Sunday October 07, 2018 @07:50AM (#57440770) Journal

      As if kids fresh out of school have any power to challenge the status quo of corporate IT

      They do, over time.

      Their ideas have certainly taken over HR fast enough.

    • What is missing is higher education. Yes, kids use Chromebooks in school but then about half of them go into higher education where, at least in STEM at the moment, a Chromebook will not cut it. However with things like Google Colabaratory and online LaTeX sites plus the increasing power of Chromebook CPUs this could soon change.
      • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday October 07, 2018 @08:30AM (#57440890)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • It's also worth noting that STEM has traditionally been a stronghold of UNIX and Linux - most important stuff, both legacy and cutting-edge, considers 'NIX to the primary target platform, with Windows usually having a ported version. If Chromebooks embrace their Linux inheritance, they will get native compatibility with that ecosystem and its vast practical software library. Coupled with being able to run the vast Android app ecosystem for popular "light" software? That might actually be a potent combina

    • by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Sunday October 07, 2018 @08:14AM (#57440850)

      The fact that the iPhones and Android phones took over the corporate market from BlackBerry in a very short period of time shows that employees can force change on their employers.

      • I think you are giving far to much credit to Apple and Google. Blackberry was a complete nightmare on the admin and management side, it server was a buggy pile of poo and app deployment was an exercise in self evisceration. Enterprises were all screaming to replace Blackberry.
    • by vtcodger ( 957785 ) on Sunday October 07, 2018 @08:27AM (#57440880)

      If enough people -- especially in management -- use chromebooks -- corporate IT will eventually find a way to wedge them into their network. Easier to adapt than to try to deal with a constant deluge of questions about why what works at home or in school doesn't work at work. Training people is harder than training chihuahuas. (Our chihuahua flunked puppy school ... twice).

      And if chromebook based IT eventually turns out to be say $25 per seat cheaper than MS based IT, you can bet management will want to switch.

      As far as individual users are concerned, I'm not a big Google fan and I dislike both Chrome and most Google stuff other than the excellent search engine, but I can't see that it makes a lot of difference whether one is being spied on by Google or Microsoft. Assuming roughly equal capability, I'd go with whichever is cheaper.

  • No (Score:4, Insightful)

    by peppepz ( 1311345 ) on Sunday October 07, 2018 @06:55AM (#57440636)
    For the last 15 years, everyone and his dog, including Microsoft themselves, have been foreseeing the death of the desktop computer because of the hip media consumption device du jour. It's not going to happen anytime soon, because those things have a tendency to suck when one tries to get some work done with them.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07, 2018 @07:03AM (#57440650)

    I work in a offices that is transitioning to "Cloud based apps". Read Google Docs and dropbox style filesharing.
    It can take upwords of a minute for a 20 page document to "load". You dare not load more than a few at once lets the browser eat so much memory it heads out to virtual. At that point, you may as well re-start the machine.
    The "features" available on such software -- on most apps, web or mobile in general -- would have been a miserable excuse of a featureset back in 1998, let alone 2018.
    What exactly was wrong with a fast, fully featured, files on your drive executable I will never understand. Maybe in a decade or so a new generation will get tired of javascript black holes and unresponsive, lag ridden cloud-based "software" and actually think about going back to the idea of a PC as a fast, responsive, personal computer on which powerful software can actually be run.

    • Maybe in a decade or so a new generation will get tired of javascript black holes and unresponsive, lag ridden cloud-based "software" and actually think about going back to the idea of a PC as a fast, responsive, personal computer on which powerful software can actually be run.

      Does this also imply a return to development that is specific to one desktop or mobile operating system, probably the primary operating system of the lead developer's device? Because right now, to reach all users, a developer of a native application must build, test, and distribute at least six different binary packages, one each for Windows, macOS, X11/Linux (.deb), X11/Linux (.rpm), iOS, and Android. This is true even if the application's source code uses a portability layer such that all six applications

      • As opposed to the "Code Once, Screw Up Everywhere" philosophy of the cloud? You'll have to excuse me. I've just wasted a number of hours determining that my simple Javascript that almost worked is never going work right because the API I'm invoking appears to be broken. I'll now revert to the local workaround that I should have used in the first place. And the last three web sites I've tried to use to do different simple stuff are all broken in multiple browsers.

        I'm not in an especially good mood.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What exactly was wrong with a fast, fully featured, files on your drive executable I will never understand.

      Exactly one thing: They can't charge you rent if you own the software. (Yes, I know, you don't really own the software. It's licensed....blah, blah, blah. Tell that to my 90's copy of Paint Shop Pro that still does most of what I need in graphic editing. Even at Adobe's rock-bottom sale price, renting Photoshop would have cost me about $2,400 by now. New features are important, you say? Not nearly as much as marketers would have you believe.)

    • The problem with a rich client is that it increases the attack surface. If the web browser were essentially like the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) or Windows Common Language Runtime (CLR), on which remote sites could run arbitrary code, it would be instant pwnage for everyone connected to the Internet. Yes, we could get Microsoft Office levels of usability and functionality, but at quite a cost.

      Right now, Google Apps run within the browser, which is deeply embedded in the local PC, but it also designed to prot

    • I often tell people that Google Docs is the feature set of 1990s MSFT Office at 1980s speed (eg Microsoft Multiplan on a TI-99/4A). I suppose Google is trying to mask how horrible their stuff is by raising a generation of people who’ve never used anything else and don’t know how much better things can be (ie, ignorance is bliss).

      • Frankly, I prefer Google Docs' feature-set-to-UI ratio. Frankly, it reminds me pleasantly of Word '97.

        Maybe what I need to do is install Word '97 on a processor from 2017, and pretend I'm using an RTOS, but I suspect that will be difficult, and I'm pretty sure that nobody else will be able to open those documents any more. But you won't be able to beat that responsiveness with a stick!
        • Other people will be able to open your Word '97 .doc files no problem. However you won't be able to open their .docx, and .odt files. Microsoft's compatibility addon for .docx wasn't released for versions older than 2000.

    • ... is zero-fuss rollout in a large organisation. That's what webapps are really good for. If you can build it as a webapp without compromising performance and responsiveness and you expect pushback from internal IT, web is the way to go.

      Other than that, custom rich clients are always the better solution. As a professional web application developer I totally agree on that.

  • Yeah, sure chromebook might become the personal device of choice for many outselling windows by numbers.

    But most people have moved on to tiny screens with very high resolutions already. A docking station clamshell [*] might outsell both.

    It really irks me almost all the sites have gone to optimizing their site for the 5 inch screen. I visit banking sites and they show the same minimal, flat, inscrutable icons (plus inside a circle, pencil, matrix, ham sandwich, kebab) without any indication or explanati

    • by c ( 8461 ) <beauregardcp@gmail.com> on Sunday October 07, 2018 @07:43AM (#57440750)

      A docking station clamshell [*] might outsell both.

      Manufacturers have been trying this for years. The ASUS PadFone is probably the craziest combination... a phone that docks to a tablet which can then slot into a keyboard docking station. I'm sure Acer's been trying something as well, although they might not be crazy enough to actually market it.

      They... don't seem to outsell anything.

      I'm inclined to think that the root of the problem is that nobody has quite nailed down the secret sauce to make a mobile phone operating system work well enough in laptop form factor to get people to spend the extra money on a proprietary dock.

      • Switching from a totally swipe based screen interface on phone to track pad on the keyboard is the major stumbling block It think.

        The docking clamshell should let the phone be docked where the trackpad is and allow it to be used as a touch interface.

      • I'm aghast that Google wasted the opportunity to turn the Motorola Atrix into the next Nexus phone, which ran Android on the handheld and ChromeOS on the laptop.

        It could have been the exact thing you're talking about, as well as bringing your phone's fat data plan to your laptop without carrier support for tethering, or ugly hacks.
  • Sorry, but what graphics software your kid makes doodles in isn't going to replace Photoshop.

  • by Monoman ( 8745 ) on Sunday October 07, 2018 @07:13AM (#57440670) Homepage

    I work in higher ed (community/state college with only a few 4yr programs) and we were discussing G vs MS the other day. K-12 in my area also uses G and Chromebooks. We are a MS shop with no G usage other than installing Chrome on PCs. How do we best prepare our students in general? (not specific majors or trade programs)

    Do we stick with MS to compliment their G suite knowledge gained in K-12? Do we switch to G to match what they are learning in K-12. Do we let the students use both and decide? Do we try to match what the universities are using to prepare transferring students?

    More and more about companies choosing the GSuite over Microsoft. It is big companies as well as small. My stance was that we should at least offer some chrome devices in labs and public areas to gauge student interest.

    • we were discussing G vs MS the other day.

      Why either of those? How about: regular laptops with Linux. This way you get a full-featured (not cloud-centric) desktop OS that is not subject to either megacorporation's whims and has a ton of available software.

      • by Monoman ( 8745 )

        Because as I previously stated, we are currently a MS shop seeing most of our students coming in from K-12 which is a G suite environment. This is a public 2 yr college. We don't provide students with devices to take home and we weren't discussion specific programs that may have specific needs. We are trying to prepare the average student for their next school or job.

        The discussion had nothing to do with our own personal viewpoints on choosing an OS or computing "ecosystem".

        • by Bert64 ( 520050 ) <bertNO@SPAMslashdot.firenzee.com> on Sunday October 07, 2018 @07:54AM (#57440788) Homepage

          You should be preparing students by showing them a range of different technologies, showing them how to get their work done using whatever tools are available and how to pick the best tool for a given task for a range of options.

          Getting tied to a particular technology is a bad idea, because by the time these kids enter the workforce whatever they learned in school will be obsolete and have been replaced with something else. Teach them how to adapt, embrace change and get things done regardless of what tools are given to them.

          • by Monoman ( 8745 )

            I think teaching people to learn is huge. I also see the longer impact of teaching versus training.

            Although I may personally agree with most, if not all, of what you are saying I am not a teacher so I have no impact on curriculum officially.

            IT staff discusses and proposes ideas conversationally to the academics. On the staff side of things we have some influence.

      • by tepples ( 727027 )

        I work in higher ed (community/state college with only a few 4yr programs) and we were discussing G vs MS the other day.

        How about: regular laptops with Linux.

        Taxpayers might call buying laptops designed to run GNU/Linux a waste of money if the Linux driver NDA exception tax exceeds the Windows tax, as Shikaku mentioned [slashdot.org].

        • That's specific to one vendor and the choices it's made. There are plenty of ubiquitous and cheaper hardware options that will work with any of several Linux distros that are available gratis.

          • by tepples ( 727027 )

            Which other "ubiquitous and cheaper hardware options" for fully GNU/Linux-compatible laptops are any good, so that a city school system or a community college can compare their prices? Buying a Windows laptop just to wipe it and install GNU/Linux still involves paying the Windows tax. Nor does the maker of a Windows laptop offer guarantee that accelerated graphics, audio, WLAN, Bluetooth, backlight brightness, and suspend will work under GNU/Linux. See, for example, everything that's broken or missing on AS [debian.org]

            • I agree, schools should buy Chromebooks, for standardization if for no other reasons. That's why schools are buying Chromebooks.

        • ...if the Linux driver NDA exception tax exceeds the Windows tax, as Shikaku mentioned [slashdot.org].

          Your friend Shikaku likes to post utter bullshit. Whether its Intel or AMD, Linux just works on modern laptops, including wifi, chipset power management, sound, GPU, nearly every USB device you can think of and even custom keyboard buttons for most popular laptops. Not drivers to install, it all just comes bundled as loadable modules. Unlike Windows driver madness, where you are sure to be orphaned sooner or later when the vendor doesn't provide a driver for Microsoft's latest incompatible spyware.

          If you d

      • Yeah, and they should teach them Klingon in their international business studies course.

    • by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <voyager529 AT yahoo DOT com> on Sunday October 07, 2018 @08:52AM (#57440924)

      I work in higher ed (community/state college with only a few 4yr programs) and we were discussing G vs MS the other day. K-12 in my area also uses G and Chromebooks. [...] How do we best prepare our students in general?

      At least for me personally, I think the best thing that can be done is to try and teach conceptual computing by abstracting the principles from the products. Skilled, educated students should be able to be able to compose a document with basic formatting in pretty much anything from Word to Docs to WordPerfect to Writer to AbiWord. It stopped shocking me that people don't understand how files and folders work; many think files are "in Word" because the only way they know to access their documents is using the File->Open command...and don't get me started with the wizardry that they ascribe to knowing Ctrl+O, Ctrl+S, and Ctrl+X/C/V.

      Essentially, I think you're asking the wrong question, because you're debating which product to teach. Don't teach Docs or Word, teach word processing. Don't teach Sheets or Excel, teach spreadsheets. Don't teach Windows or Linux, teach file management. Don't teach Chrome or Firefox, teach web browsers. Part of the 'higher' part of 'higher education' is being exposed to lots of different things, and learning to problem solve. Most of the students who are entering the freshman year are simply not taught these skills.
      Part of the problem is that tech in K-12 is a train wreck. Boards and superintendents implement products based on shiny pamphlets and demo sessions, and computer teachers who are skilled at both computers and teaching are rare (so students are either taught correct information poorly or taught well but incorrect or limited information).
      By the time information gets to kids, they're generally better off with Youtube tutorials or self-motivated exploration of Sourceforge...except they can't do those things at school since computers can't run applications IT doesn't approve, and at home, the aging desktop is probably either a magnet for "don't touch that" or a malware-ridden train wreck of uselessness.

      In conclusion, obviously a rando Slashdot commenter is not going to be a reason for the powers that be to turn around their feelings on the matter...but for whatever it's worth, teaching 'computing' rather than 'G-Suite' or 'MS Office' is what I really feel will benefit the kids the most.

      • by Monoman ( 8745 )

        Although I may personally agree with most, if not all, of what you are saying I am not a teacher so I have no impact on curriculum officially.

        IT staff discusses and proposes ideas conversationally to the academics. On the staff side of things we have some influence.

      • This is my approach to programming. Often the class is to teach Java/C#/etc but I try to teach first thinking critically about how you want the program to work, then how to write it in the current language. Doesn't work with everyone.

        • We're talking about a community college here. The students don't want to know about concepts; they want to know how to put a word in comic sans because when they go for a job interview they aren't going to be asked about concepts. They're going to be asked if they know how to put a word in comic sans.

          • We're talking about a community college here. The students don't want to know about concepts; they want to know how to put a word in comic sans because when they go for a job interview they aren't going to be asked about concepts. They're going to be asked if they know how to put a word in comic sans.

            Doesn't matter what they want to learn, if they can't adapt over time to new skills necessary to the job they wont have a career that lasts more than a few years.

      • Don't teach Docs or Word, teach word processing. Don't teach Sheets or Excel, teach spreadsheets. Don't teach Windows or Linux, teach file management. Don't teach Chrome or Firefox, teach web browsers. Part of the 'higher' part of 'higher education' is being exposed to lots of different things, and learning to problem solve

        I think this is the right approach. Younger people are more adaptable, and should be able to apply the fundamentals to a different product. Plus there's no guarantee it will be the same products in 10-20 years time anyways. I did elementary school with Apple II / DOS computers, middle school and high school with Macs, university with Windows PCs. Switching platforms didn't harm me.

    • My local university went full-on GSuite a few years ago. Maybe a little because that's what students are used to, but mostly because it's more productive for staff and easier for the university to manage. Oh, and I'm told it's much, much cheaper, too.

  • by Teun ( 17872 ) on Sunday October 07, 2018 @07:17AM (#57440678)
    Since Microsoft (Win10) started spying on it's users the question is whether Google's spying is any worse.

    Without good legislation these large (US) companies will only increase their snooping, especially children that have no choice need to be protected against any harvesting of their data.
    See my sig.
  • by Dallas May ( 4891515 ) on Sunday October 07, 2018 @07:21AM (#57440688)

    Remember when it was the Mac that was going to threaten Microsoft Windows dominance because they were often found in schools? Yeah. Well, it didn't exactly happen. Macs made some gains, from about 4% to 12% today, but it was more from being good computers not OS addictions.

    The major fallacy is that there is more to business computing than just Microsoft Office. In fact, there is a lot more. Most jobs require their employees to learn and utilize a small host of different applications. Many of those are developed in-house. Many, many of those applications simply don't exist on other platforms, or at least not nearly to the same quality. If your software that you use doesn't exist on a rival platform, or you would have to spend lots and lots of money training and migrating over to another program, then why would you do that?

    I mean, for gawd sake, companies -lots and lots of companies- are still using Oricle. You think they are going to switch to Chromebooks? You are insane.

    • The difference today is that more and more of those non office applications are web-based or have a web interface. Fewer and fewer require applications to run on specific computer platform. Combine that with vdi and you have a Chrome solution.

    • by Bert64 ( 520050 ) <bertNO@SPAMslashdot.firenzee.com> on Sunday October 07, 2018 @08:00AM (#57440806) Homepage

      Macs were not successful primarily because of the cost, Apple do not make cheap lowend desktops to compete with the machines that the average corporation buys thousands of to throw on everyone's desks.
      ChromeOS devices on the other hand are available cheaply and from several suppliers.

      Chrome lacks the biggest disadvantage of apple (price), while offering many significant advantages over windows for a corporate environment.

      When it comes to custom applications, especially in-house ones, many of these are now web based and the market is heading that way. The client does not matter when the custom apps are web based. Those few remaining (and declining numbers) apps which are not web based can usually be handled via rdp or telnet/ssh clients with the apps running on a remote host.
      In most of the offices i see, what the majority of users are doing could easily be performed on a chromebook, and switching to chromebooks would result in significant cost savings and security benefits.

    • by tepples ( 727027 )

      Most of the custom applications used where I work are web applications. But a Chromebook would still not work so well because everyone seems to have one exception. One is Excel, as one of our suppliers encourages us to use the macro-driven Excel workbook that it supplies to pre-validate product feeds before we upload them. Another is Photoshop, used to touch up product images before uploading them. I doubt that Wine in Crostini is the answer.

      • one of our suppliers encourages us to use the macro-driven Excel workbook that it supplies to pre-validate product feeds before we upload them

        Wow, must suck to work where you work. Just find a company capable of using Web technologies, it's more likely to survive.

        • by tepples ( 727027 )

          As long as Amazon isn't fully "capable of using Web technologies", any company that sells on Amazon isn't either.

  • Or Chrome gaming pcs. Or Chrome video editors. Chrome will not take the high end, just like "real" Linux has failed too. I've seen "Linux on the desktop" since 2001. "Chrome in the Enterprise" is just another meme.
    • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      High end is a niche... Although what you really mean are "high end desktops", since the ultimate high end (supercomputers) are actually dominated by linux already.

      Most corporate desktops are lowend machines doing mundane tasks, chromeos can perform the vast majority of these mundane tasks with less cost, less maintenance overhead and less security risks than windows.

    • Most employees don't need workstations, they just need a desktop to get a better monitor and keyboard. An USB-C dock suffices for that.

  • As soon as Microsoft will fail.

  • Get the business market and get the majority market share.

    If you don't get the business market, then you won't get majority market share.

  • "Will Chromebook completely remove iPad from education?"

  • Does MS spy on you? Sure, no doubt they do to an extent. Though, when it is anything too overt, the folks here and in the media go ape shit.
    You give MS money, and they give you an OS. You give Apple a dump-truck full of money and they give you a hard-ward platform which can run MacOS.
    Funds paid, services rendered. Fine.

    Google on the other hand gives the OS for free. They want you to use their free web-apps as well. Store your data on their free cloud drives. Maybe pay a bit to upgrade the storage.
    So.. all y

  • by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Sunday October 07, 2018 @07:58AM (#57440802) Journal
    Trying to herd all the productive users.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • We can already see services being pushed into the cloud. Even Microsoft sees this and is adapting to that. What we are not likely to repeat is a locked down platform. Even if your business is using Office365 or whatever, you'll still access other services simultaneously. Microsoft's control of the platform is slipping from their grasp. In the end we'll see a multitude of players unless someone figures out how to monopolize deploying applications.

    Will the future platform be Chromebooks? I highly doubt it. Wi

  • by ZenDragon ( 1205104 ) on Sunday October 07, 2018 @09:20AM (#57440996)
    I am a consultant currently working at a large client that has completely replaced MS office with G-Suite, including GMail for email. But that is the absolute extent to which any Google "cloud" applications are used. The rest of the environment (desktop wise) is a mixture of Windows 10, Linux, and Mac, also using both Azure and AWS for development via Visual Studio, VSCode, Eclipse, I mean, whatever they want to use honestly. They also use Power BI, and a handful of other data analytics tools that I've never heard of. Anyway, I could keep going, but my point is that most companies do so much more that just cant be done on a Chromebook. It's incredibly naive, and just plain ignorant to assume that a platform serving K-12 schools is even going to come close to providing the same functionality that companies use. Hell, I rarely ever even open any office suite type applications anymore, with the exception of needing to make the occasional flow chart. Anybody that needs to do REAL work is going to need to break out of the Chromebook walled garden, and get on a real desktop OS.
  • I work in a school in the UK. I'm currently having arguments over exactly this subject: the powers that be want to roll out Google quickly (having already wasted *lots* of money on some iPads a few years ago, and Asus eeePCs before that). Apparently I'm the only IT guy across the multi-academy Trust who's been kicking up a stink, the rest have just rolled over and moved to Google, Chromebooks and all.

    We presently have just under 1000 PCs and laptops running Windows 10 and Office 2016 / Office 365 (the latte

  • Nice business you have here, it would be a shame if something happened to it.

  • ... which was/is a no-show in the business market.

    FTFS:

    If kids grow up using G Suite and Chromebooks, there's a reasonable chance they'll use them when they get older.

  • Chromebooks taking over schools don't present a credible threat to Microsoft. Test by: Apple has long ruled the schools, going clear back to those weirdly shaped translucent all-in-one CRT macs in designer colors. And although one could argue that this has almost certainly increased the popularity of Apple among young adults, and made Apple extremely profitable, the most used OS on the desktop remains firmly Microsoft.

    Chrome taking over in the schools doesn't change that equation. If a large footprint i

  • Microsoft will release office apps on chrome and Linux and may entirely rewrite their desktop OS to run on top of Linux. WSL is the bridge.

  • by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Sunday October 07, 2018 @05:46PM (#57442548)
  • I use it daily. Yes, I've tried gimp and others, but they don't work for me, as well as photoshop.
  • Eventually.

    'The cloud' which many of us don't like here, is /generally/ proving to be good enough for base users. While you and I might bemoan the performance of Google Sheets vs Excel (or alt) when doing a heap of work on a massive spreadsheet. Most 'normies' are finding it good enough.

    Same goes for web browsing, document writing and what have you. Especially as you go up the chain to middle and upper management where 2/3 of the job is emails, graphs, documents.

    Then there's web based tools to do the wo

  • Obviously schools are critical, look how Apple dominates desktop computing with its decades of school dominance!

    sarcasm aside I think schools are highly overrated for their influence here, especially nowadays when the difference between a windows and chromebook user from a school perspectivie is basically ZERO, both of them you open a browser for the majority of your work, the rest is all down to individual apps/
  • Will Chromebooks challenge MS Windows?

    "They've unseated the Mac in schools. ... Chromebooks are also Trojan horses. Children and teens use them for schoolwork and more. ... If kids grow up using G Suite and Chromebooks, there's a reasonable chance they'll use them when they get older."

    you mean, like those Mac's they have replaced? those were never a challenge to MS Windows either.

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