Google Schools Microsoft With Chromebooks For Education

Several administrators have already weighed in on the impact that the Chromebooks for Education push is having on their operations. Tina Heizman, Director of IT for Wisconsin’s Merton Community School District, says “I used to spend my summer imaging new computers, but using the web-based management console to deploy web apps across all 110 Chromebooks took me less than one hour.”

If Google can kill the pain so easily for school IT departments on small budgets, they’ve already won, in my opinion. Administrators love simplicity, and when you’re dealing with hundreds of laptops that only need limited functionality to work in the classroom, the cumbersome maintenance requirements of Windows systems don’t have a prayer.

The only vulnerability I see for Google here is the recent pressure on education budgets across the country. School districts may be so overwhelmed trying to keep from firing teachers that the last thing they want is to risk overhauling their IT services, even if it has worked for other schools.

Businesses looking to trim hardware costs are much more likely to dump at least a portion of their budgets on some Chromebooks to see if they’ll stand up to their demands. The two-pronged approach may just push Chrome’s market-share to competitive heights as the operating system of choice for education and corporate settings.