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Education Google

New Zealand Chooses Google Chromebooks Over Microsoft Windows 10 For Education (betanews.com) 165

Posted by msmash from the further-expansion dept.
Google announced this week that it has signed an agreement with New Zealand's Ministry of Education to provide all state and state integrated schools in the country with Chrome Education licenses. The three-year agreement goes into effect on November 1 next month. From a report: "Starting on November 1, as part of an agreement with Google and the New Zealand Ministry of Education, all state and state-integrated schools across New Zealand will be able to start claiming Ministry-funded Chrome Education licenses to manage new and existing unmanaged Chromebooks. The Chrome Education license was developed to make device management in schools a breeze, so that teachers and students can focus on what's most important -- teaching and learning. Equipped with the Chrome Education license, schools can utilize essential education features to better support the many ways Chromebooks are used in the classroom," says Suan Ye, Head of Google for Education, Australia and New Zealand.
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New Zealand Chooses Google Chromebooks Over Microsoft Windows 10 For Education More

New Zealand Chooses Google Chromebooks Over Microsoft Windows 10 For Education

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  • Got a chromebook for mum. Also: Year of LotDT. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 28, 2018 @07:12PM (#57551665)

    I have to say, it's a perfect device for most people. It "just works", and they don't have to have a degree in comp-sci to manage the thing.

    We all used to wonder what was going to bring down the Windows monopoly. It's Linux... in the form of Chromebooks.

    Yeah yeah someone ALWAYS points out that they can't use one because of UberCadSuperSimulationPublisherLatheController 44.0, but those people are a minuscule minority. They'll keep using Windows for a while yet, but the average person will use a phone for mobile computing, and a Chromebook or work-alike for home use when they want a larger screen. Most people's needs are perfectly met by a device like these.

    Chromebooks are what's starting to drive the "year of Linux on the desktop". Not Gnome, not Cinnamon, but ChromeOS. The market hasn't totally flipped yet. It will, and when it happens, Windows is going to fade. Already Chromebooks are approaching 70% of all school purchases in the USA (flew past 60% in early 2018), and people are turning to them for home use too. When that generation of kids gets to be adults, they'll keep using ChromeOS.

    • What's really great is that Linux applications (apps one might normally run in xwindows) are gradually being enabled in Chromebooks. The ability to easily run a full Linux as a container/VM is also being enabled. It's a big step forward for Linux in general.

    • Re: Got a chromebook for mum. Also: Year of LotDT (Score:5, Insightful)

      by holostarr ( 2709675 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @07:34PM (#57551787)
      You sing praise of Chromebook as if Google is a saint. Just because something has a Linux kernel doesn't mean it deserves to be celebrated. What good is that kernel if it is hidden under layers of nonstandard UI, or tied to cloud services designed to spy on you and monetize your personal data? It's not like the end user of a Chromebook is any better off than on Windows, just more gimped, while giving more of their data to one company.

      • This was my question: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Do the educational licenses ensure that Google does to do data analytics on the employees/students habits, typing speeds, etc, or is just one more brick in profiling everyone so accurately that no one can hide from the all seeing eyes?

      • Yeah, I found it weird New Zealand would choose Google given their strong attachment to personal privacy.

        As with any sale this size though, it's usually about the kickbacks.

        • Re: Got a chromebook for mum. Also: Year of LotD (Score:5, Interesting)

          by youngone ( 975102 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @10:19PM (#57552471)

          Yeah, I found it weird New Zealand would choose Google given their strong attachment to personal privacy.

          As a born and bred New Zealander, I have no idea where you get that idea from.
          The average Kiwi knows absolutely nothing about computers, and the people who made this decision will be no different. They want it to "Just Work".

          As with any sale this size though, it's usually about the kickbacks

          There won't be any kickbacks. Check out the corruption perceptions index. We are either 1st or 2nd in the world for corruption.
          This may be because of the many schools who demanded parents buy iPads. The pushback was pretty strong, and I know several people who told their kid's school to get stuffed when told they would have to buy one.

          • Appreciate the education on lack of corruption in NZ, I was not aware.

            That said, your remark seems to echo the NZ got the wool pulled over their eyes sentiment. What will happen once with greater enablement in their children, the people realize the privacy implications of their decision?

            • Re: Got a chromebook for mum. Also: Year of LotD (Score:5, Interesting)

              by Tyger-ZA ( 1886544 ) on Monday October 29, 2018 @01:10AM (#57552991)

              What will happen once with greater enablement in their children, the people realize the privacy implications of their decision?

              Are you unaware that the latest Windows is also a privacy shit show? I'm sure even an Apple device is reporting *something* back to Cupertino. The only option to not be spied on these days is to install GNU/Linux or similar. That said, having privacy from some megacorp isn't a primary or even secondary need for "education devices"

              The requirements are probably more like:

              Cheap so it doesn't really matter if a kid fucks it up. Some idiot in this thread listed "cheap" as a drawback, yet it's a primary need for these devices. Cheap also leads to weaker hardware; guess which OS will suffer the most on weak hardware (Clue: it's not one of the *nix derivatives)

              Needs to be locked down so a kid won't fuck the OS up and require IT support (even locking down the OS requires IT support if you're on Windows)

              Automagically uploading to a server so a virus can't eat the homework, while still allowing offline work that will automagically upload later on when it has a network connection

              Collaborative work: Google docs has been collaborative for years, so no mailing around different versions of a doc. The group just edits the doc locally and sees everyone else's update in real time. I'm sure MS Office would have copied this feature by now but honestly who gives a fuck about the product that did it second

              And to the people claiming that these kids will be disadvantaged when they join the work force, you've got it backwards. The megacorps try and get people to use their products as kids so that they turn into adults who expect/use the same products in their work place. For example, the university I attended had free licenses of Office, Visual Studio Pro, Visio etc provided by MS to the IT students, as a means of locking us into their way of doing things (If you've already got Visual Studio then you're at least going to try writing your code in C# and your teachers know that they can expect you to produce and submit your work using the provided tools

            • Re: Got a chromebook for mum. Also: Year of LotD (Score:4, Interesting)

              by tordon ( 176098 ) on Monday October 29, 2018 @03:46AM (#57553329)

              Privacy implications compared to what?

              Cloud is the only practical option, as the funding isn't there for anything else, and they are all as bad as each other. That cancels out in the comparison.

              Maintenance wise Chromebooks win hands down. Logically it is the only choice they could make.

              The kids who are capable will have another computer anyway.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          Yeah they call it a bribe. All the major corporations have shit bucket tons of money in off shore tax havens and they pay bribes in the form of luxury over seas holidays ie the only corrupt government approved way of getting and spending bribes, that and of course campaign contributions. Not only are the selling the privacy of New Zealand children but addicting them to the privacy invasiveness of Google and selling out the psychological control of the minors to Google before they even become adults, data to

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bert64 ( 520050 )

            he flip side, the New Zealand government and Education Department publicly admitting they are not technologically inept to manage computer system and must pass it off to a US corporation,

            If they didn't hand the schoolkids over to the american corporation google, they would hand them over to the american corporations apple or microsoft... There aren't really any other alternatives.

            And it's highly unlikely that an education department would have the skills (or budget to hire such skilled people) to manage computer systems properly.

            Those new zealand tech companies are probably all just resellers for one of the above american corporations anyway, perhaps providing some limited local first-line

        • As with any sale this size though, it's usually about the kickbacks.

          Or more accurately, it's about cost benefit combined with the fact that Google has a very large education ecosystem. My wife works at an Apple school. Macbooks and iPads all round... All powered by Google's Classroom set of educational suites.

          If they went to tender right now Chromebooks would almost certainly win.

        • New Zealanders in general have absolutely no idea about technological privacy. Occasionally people get asked to shut down drones where I live but the dangers of surveillance or encryption don't seem to shine this far down. Our police and government use private investigators to sidestep the law (Thompson and Clarke is one) and where they get caught sidestepping it they change it since obviously the law was out of date. As an example of how blind we are our Womans Refugee website has 23 trackers attached to i
      • Ya gotta admit that Microsoft is really making an effort to catch up in the spying functionality.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

        You sing praise of Chromebook as if Google is a saint.

        Not the same. Microsoft was a monopoly, and their Windows is still a monoculture, with many applications that run on only that platform.

        ChromeBooks are different. Almost everything is done in the browser, and can also be done on a Windows laptop or MacBook. There is no lock-in.

        Give a kid a Windows PC and they learn how to use Windows.

        Give a kid a ChromeBook and they learn how to use the Internet.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by WaffleMonster ( 969671 )

          Not the same. Microsoft was a monopoly, and their Windows is still a monoculture, with many applications that run on only that platform.

          Every general purpose operating system provides a native ABI unique to that operating system generally not compatible with other operating systems.

          What you are saying is no different from asserting iptables won't run on Windows so Linux is a monoculture.

          ChromeBooks are different.

          Almost everything is done in the browser, and can also be done on a Windows laptop or MacBook. There is no lock-in.

          Using a dumb terminal does nothing to prevent lock-in it simply punts the issue.

          Give a kid a Windows PC and they learn how to use Windows.

          Give a kid a ChromeBook and they learn how to use the Internet.

          At least the Windows kid will have learned something they can use later in life.

          Nobody looking to be hired for any job writes "I can use the Internet!!" on their resume.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • What do you mean non standard UI?

        A browser is as standard as it gets.

      • But it is not necessarily locked away...
        https://www.xda-developers.com... [xda-developers.com]

        Even then, what's stopping a school from buying a shitload of chromebooks, and then ripping Google's OS out of them and going with whatever the fuck they want, using something like MrChromebox?

        https://mrchromebox.tech/#devi... [mrchromebox.tech]

        (Notice, just about all of them support *FULL* UEFI bios replacement!!)

        • Even then, what's stopping a school from buying a shitload of chromebooks, and then ripping Google's OS out of them and going with whatever the fuck they want, using something like MrChromebox?

          Answer: the fact that noone in a school has the slightest clue about how to manage technology, hardware or basically even the photocopier.

          My kid is at a NZ intermediate (middle) school where the 'ICT' guru is just a male teacher who seems to have just impressed everyone else by writing some wickid formula's in excel or something

          School's have no capability or even desire to install custom OSs. In fact - many of them use third party surveillance (sorry I mean 'safety') tools and require you to sign all kinds

      • What good is that kernel if it is hidden under layers of nonstandard UI

        Some would say "ideal". If you at any point need to see or interact with your kernel in any way or even get within reach of some of its layers of abstraction then you have really fouled up the entire OS design.

        Also what is non-standard about Chromebook's UI? They seem quite consistent across devices to me.

      • Re: Got a chromebook for mum. Also: Year of LotDT (Score:5, Interesting)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday October 29, 2018 @06:03AM (#57553623) Homepage Journal

        First, it's a school laptop so the expectation of privacy is probably minimal to start with.

        Secondly, Google doesn't monteize personal data without permission (e.g. asking to use your photos on Google maps, opt-in on personalized advertising), and has special educational accounts for children that are even more restricted. Remember that you normally can't even get a Google account to use a Chromebook unless you are of legal age to agree to it in your jurisdiction.

        By the way, if you have evidence that Google is using personal data it does not have explicit opt-in permission to use then I'd love to see it. I will file the GDPR complaint personally, all you need to do is show me the proof I need.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        Because it's open source, and there's no reason a third party couldn't provide a version of chromeos configured to use their services instead of google's.

        Fundamentally, general purpose computers are designed for geeks, they require knowledge to operate and maintain which most people neither have nor want, and if you allow people without the requisite skills to operate complex machines then disaster usually occurs (malware epidemics being a good example).

        So what's best for users is locked down devices manage

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I use a Chromebook as my primary laptop. I rarely run ChromeOS though. Mostly I boot a full Linux system off a SD card. With that said, ChromeOS is nice for running Android apps or when I just need a tablet (it's a 2-in-1 chromebook).

    • Re:Got a chromebook for mum. Also: Year of LotDT. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @10:23PM (#57552485)

      "I have to say, it's a perfect device for most people. It "just works", and they don't have to have a degree in comp-sci to manage the thing."

      Yeah, just do all your computing, shopping, and interacting with the world using a device built by an advertising company that wants to monetize you. What could possibly be undesirable about that.

      "Yeah yeah someone ALWAYS points out that they can't use one because of UberCadSuperSimulationPublisherLatheController 44.0, but those people are a minuscule minority"

      No they aren't. They want to work on a powerpoint or spreadhsheet using exactly the same software they use at work. They run a small business and need some accounting software. They bought a logitech harmony universal remote and want to program it, they want to play some random steam game.

      "When that generation of kids gets to be adults, they'll keep using ChromeOS."

      For a while it was all ipads ipads ipads, every student gets an ipad, and schools couldn't buy enough ipads, and then the schools discovered they weren't really all that great for education after all. And now home users are finding between their smartphone and their laptop the tablet isn't that useful there either, and the next great thing is now becoming a niche -- still useful and definitely has a place but we didn't get rid of all our computers for them in the end.

      Chromebooks are the new tablets which were the new netbooks... maybe they'll take hold... or maybe they'll be ultimately found to be too limiting too. The jury's still out. For me... as lousy as windows 10 is... chromeOs is not an improvement.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        "They run a small business and need some accounting software. They bought a logitech harmony universal remote and want to program it, they want to play some random steam game."

        There are plenty of options for small businesses to use web based accounting software that operates in the cloud. In fact these are quite attractive to a small business due to things like having your accountant/book keeper and yourself being able to see the same set of up to date accounts. Your point was?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by vux984 ( 928602 )

          "In fact these are quite attractive to a small business due to things like having your accountant/book keeper "

          Meh, most accountants and bookkeepers I've met advise against using cloud products; most of them are either more expensive or more limited or both. Not to mention being tied to your internet availability, and there service availability, and being subjected to random user interface changes and feature breakages... yeah its the holy grail of what people want for bookkeeping.

          "due to things like having

      • For a while it was all ipads ipads ipads, every student gets an ipad, and schools couldn't buy enough ipads, and then the schools discovered they weren't really all that great for education after all. And now home users are finding between their smartphone and their laptop the tablet isn't that useful there either, and the next great thing is now becoming a niche -- still useful and definitely has a place but we didn't get rid of all our computers for them in the end.

        Chromebooks are the new tablets which were the new netbooks... maybe they'll take hold... or maybe they'll be ultimately found to be too limiting too. The jury's still out.

        The iPad craze was simply Apple's tremendously capable marketing machine in action. Once people got them in their hands they discovered they were useless.

        There is one very big difference between iPads and Chromebooks: Chromebooks have physical keyboards. Tablets are passive consumption devices. They have no other purpose. Even tablet games are practically passive experiences because there's neither the screen real estate nor the input devices available to manage a complex UI. Not even Apple's marketing

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by vux984 ( 928602 )

          Ok. You aren't wrong.

          "Sure a Chromebook isn't a "real" computer. Or is it... Did you know you can program an Arduino from a Chromebook? You can. You can also edit images, audio, and video...and run any Linux application."

          Or for exactly the same price I get an actual laptop that does *all* of that and runs any windows program too. To me that's the problem chromebooks have; the budget stuff at the low end is garbage ... screen too small, keyboard cramped, low quality, fragile.

          Now you can go upmarket from the

    • Microsoft is fighting back with its best product. VisualStudio. When it comes to Integrated Development Environment, there is nothing better than Visual Studio. Already Microsoft is supporting ssh daemon and incoming ssh connections, linux tools are shipping with WinX.

      Visual Studio is attaching to gdb and xdb command line debuggers in Linux from Windows in Visual Studio 2017. I would not be surprised if Windows become the preferred development platform for Linux clients also. Given Active Directory has ma

      • If you think Visual studio will ever be the preferred development environment for Linux you should seek psychiatric help.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kqs ( 1038910 )

        Microsoft is fighting back with its best product. VisualStudio.

        Yay, but 99% of students won't be programmers, so why would they care about (the apparently amazing, wonderful, life-altering, floor-cleaning, and world-peace-bringing) VisualStudio?

        Already Microsoft is supporting ssh daemon and incoming ssh connections,

        Seems like the first thing I would disable on student devices, but maybe you envision a school full of perfectly-behaved programmers?

  • Its about management (CMC) (Score:5, Informative)

    by labnet ( 457441 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @07:29PM (#57551759)

    I did the training for CMC (Chrome Management Console) for a non school related project and I can see why schools are adopting it.
    CMC is WAY easier for IT admins to use over active directory.
    You can control exactly what version of chrome devices use, when they update, what wifi networks they can connect to, what apps are allowed, where devices are (on a map even!), high security built in and its cheap. Its as close to nirvana that overworked school IT pros can get.

    AD will still win on corporate networks, but MS have lost the education space and the mobile/cell phone space. Unfortunately their office/Win10 grip will hold firm in the corporate space for the foreseeable future.

    • yes management not price and no spyware (Score:5, Informative)

      by johnjones ( 14274 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @09:26PM (#57552305) Homepage Journal

      google education licenses in schools, does not allow google to use any user personal information (or any information associated with a Google Account).

      basically edu licenses for both Microsoft and Google are free its the hardware etc that costs, microsoft had pretty much lost this one and even DELL know it... I repeat DELL sell chromebooks thats how much chromebooks are working in edu.

      personally the quicker we can kill Active Directory and have proper security the better

    • its cheap

      Yeah. You're paying for it by giving Google all of your data. Nothing's free.
  • It's a good choice for all students. It might not be the best choice for a minority who want to do more with their devices, but I suspect those will find a way, like we did when I was in school and all the computers ran MS windows. My kids use a chromebook for school. Their learning materials are online.

    I'm in NZ, although we homeschool so this isn't something that directly affects us at the moment. The previous government here changed from centralized IT purchasing for schools to shcools being able to nego
    • Yeah, Google can now harvest people's data and build a profile on them at an earlier age!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jemmyw ( 624065 )
        Well quite. That does worry me. At least you can install an adblocker on ChromeOS.

        But how much better is it in Windows? ChromeOS has never pushed app ads on me, but Windows 10 does appear to do that (caveat: I installed and used it once out of curiosity. And it was awful).

        Besides, I hear people are giving their kids smartphones, so they already have the personal data. At least my kids use of a chromebook is reasonably supervised.
        • What good is an ad blocker when your child is tied to their ecosystem? They are logged in using a Google account at all time, send and receive emails at Gmail, read and save documents on Google docs, and browse the web using chrome. Google will have a pretty detailed profile on your child, including academic records.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by jemmyw ( 624065 )
            Well quite a lot if you assume that the point of collecting the data is to sell us stuff via ads.

            Now you say including academic records. That would indicate you believe Chrome is scraping the content of the pages visited and sending that to google. That seems unlikely... I'm sure its something they'd like to do, but it would at least get reported. A more likely route for that information would be the education provider selling that data, and then it doesn't matter which OS you're using.

            (the academic data do

            • That would indicate you believe Chrome is scraping the content of the pages visited and sending that to google. That seems unlikely... I'm sure its something they'd like to do, but it would at least get reported.

              Here [digitalcontentnext.org] you [theguardian.com] go.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by jemmyw ( 624065 )
                Yes, but that's not collecting the content of pages you visit and sending them off, which is what I meant.

                Not sure what the argument is here. I don't need convincing that G doesn't have my best interests at heart. But neither does MS. What are the alternatives to give to kids? And even if you suggest something it tends to be niche and not available in NZ (not with a warranty anyway). Apple, Google, MS, choose your poison, or try and find hardware that works with Linux and spend your time configuring that. W

  • Hmm... (Score:3)

    by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @07:50PM (#57551879)

    Hmmm... Chrome... shiney!

    A good move, given that there are a lot of poor families in NZ (and our standard of living continues to fall) so chances are that a Chrome device will be cheaper than a Windows one, ensuring that everyone has access to the necessary resources.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Actually kind of a clickbait title, New Zealand Ministry of Education has done licence deals with Microsoft and Apple over the years. Just adding google to the mix. Each School adopts their own 1:1 program, and generally recommend devices and operating systems according to their needs.

  • Who cares? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mschaffer ( 97223 )

    Either way they are being screwed.

  • Will be used in the run up to Christmas? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by chrism238 ( 657741 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @08:00PM (#57551933)
    As the NZ school year finishes up in late November/early December, why not save 2+ months of licensing by waiting for the new school yea run February?

    • why not save 2+ months of licensing by waiting for the new school yea run February?

      Why slowly adopt and roll things out over the quiet period for testing when you can just throw everything at your users in one go and hope for the best? Nothing good comes from your suggestion. The 2 month additional license cost here is money well spent. February is chaotic enough without new hardware.

  • We seem to be in an endless cycle of dumbing down:

    • 1) The low standard in IT education means people come out of school lacking basic computer skills.
    • 2) To meet the needs of untrained users, computer companies dumb down their product, reducing the power and sophistication.
    • 3) Schools adopt the dumb down products and thus IT education standards decline further. Go to 2).

    I considered becoming an IT teacher in the UK, which requires you to spend a few weeks before you can do the teacher training course. What I

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Except for the part where chromebooks, you know... have a programming environment installed by default out of the box.

      A FAR more sophisticated and capable one than those Apple II's back in the day.

      Nice rant though.

  • Anti-microsoft bias (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Sigh, it's the antimicrosoft bias in NZ schools.

    They've all got free use of Microsoft software due to their license agreement - but do the schools use it?

    No. They use Google stuff. Because that's all the teachers know. They think "microsoft bad", but coming from the actual enterprise I.T. space, I look at what teachers are doing and laugh. They do stuff they think it is impressive, and I look at it and think how much nicer it is in Office 365.

    And they don't even have to pay for it.

    • Sigh, it's the antimicrosoft bias in NZ schools.

      They've all got free use of Microsoft software due to their license agreement - but do the schools use it?

      No. They use Google stuff. Because that's all the teachers know. They think "microsoft bad", but coming from the actual enterprise I.T. space, I look at what teachers are doing and laugh. They do stuff they think it is impressive, and I look at it and think how much nicer it is in Office 365.

      And they don't even have to pay for it.

      I dunno about you, but when I refuse something that is free, it's because something else is better. IOW, that $FREE thing lost purely due to merit.

  • Garbage article (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @08:16PM (#57552017) Journal

    What is this garbage?

    Hell, even the Surface hardware feels uninspired these days

    Why is some lame Microsoft-hating blog being linked to instead of the original source?
    https://www.blog.google/outrea... [www.blog.google]

    Nothing in the statement from Google says this is an exclusive switch to only Chromebooks. This is just the government saying that they'll pay for special education licenses to manage Chromebooks for schools that want it. Probably because schools have been buying Chromebooks because they're the cheapest option, and now the school systems are having issues managing them. Obviously the government wouldn't be blowing money on these management tools if they weren't having issues with the Chromebooks that needed to be addressed. What I want to know is if the schools already bought Chromebooks, and Google has tools the manage them en masse, why is Google *charging* schools to use this tool? Google already has made money off the Chromebooks - they've already been purchased. This expenditure doesn't directly help the students. It's not buying more hardware, or more educational software. It's just to try and keep the Chromebooks running right. You'd think Google, with their billions, would provide these tools for free to any educational organization that wants it.

    But this has to be spun as an anti-Microsoft move by New Zealand.

  • MS stuff is also free (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sensationull ( 889870 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @08:22PM (#57552039)

    As someone who works in NZ schools this is totally sensationalist. Windows 10 and intune management liscences have been paid for under the same kind of deal for years. It is good they are now doing the same thing for chrome os. There are a lot of chromebooks in use but there is also a lot of Windows and Mac too. The article and writeup are very bias as per usual.

  • Chrome is only starting to provide any real programming tools. So when teachers want to use tools, they will have to use whatever few are supported on Chrome, or use them in the cloud. If I want Java and Netbeans (or IntelliJ, or BlueJ, or...) good luck. Google created this sticky platform as the snare, and the formerly do-no-evil company is now a gigantic spider sucking the blood (and perhaps student brains) out of schools And of course, consider the Digital Gap, which as the New York Times says is not
  • Does Google have any servers in New Zealand? If not I'm surprised they find the latency acceptable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gringer ( 252588 )

      An acceptable latency in NZ is probably not the same as an acceptable latency in other countries. But it doesn't really matter; there aren't many NZ school kids who have lived overseas enough to know what latency is like in other countries.

    • Most people are on Fiber (to the home) in NZ these days (or can get it). Certainly most schools are on fiber.
      If I ping my east coast US office over VPN from NZ I get just under 200ms response, so not too bad.
      Remote desktop is certainly fluid enough to be completely usable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jemmyw ( 624065 )
      The latency is middling. But it's not that much of an issue for the sort of usage you're thinking - once you've loaded the document you're working on then you will only notice latency during collaboration. And I believe NZ has better broadband penetration than the US, I certainly have a faster connection today in rural NZ than I did in California 3 years ago.
  • I have contracted for a lot of schools and the price is extremely attractive, but the maintenance and instability and how it does not work with 50% of the applications out there is the killer. One school deployed 10000 Chrome-books and the IT department work load went up 297%. There was no way to keep up with all the problems. The Chrome-books would have to be re-loaded over and over and over to fix issues. Google tried to help but they were faced with the same issues. These are great if you do nothing but

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      My experience with multiple schools in NZ is the opposite. Switching from Windows to ChromeOS and Macs lowers the TCO by several orders of magnitude. I wish I were joking but it's literally the difference between being called for help at least once a week, to being called for help once a year (if that).

      Not a single school I've dealt with (about a dozen in total) wants anything to do with MS again since switching.

  • This agreement isn't about buying more chromebooks or shedding current windows/Mac computers, it's about a license to allow schools to better manage their chromebooks.

    Windows users get the tools to do this for free with their windows desktop and server licenses (Active Directory/Group Policy), the Australian govt is simply buying a tool to provide a somewhat similar suite of tools for their chromebooks.

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