THE RACE IS ON: The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Chromebooks now account for 19% of K-12 market for mobile computers in 2013, according to data from Futuresource. (Google's VP of Product Management first shared these numbers back in October 2013.) It's a big leap for Google, whose Chromebooks were in less than 1% of the market a year earlier. Apple's iPad is still in the lead with an estimated 43% of market share. The biggest loser? Windows--which saw its market share slide from 47.5% in 2012 to 28% in 2013.
The Chromebook's lower price tag could pose a threat to Apple. Some schools, like Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, recently ditched Macs for Chromebook. Others, however, find that Chromebooks and iPads can complement each other.
In his Jan. 27 earnings call, Apple's Senior VP and CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, kicked off the company's latest numbers for the school market with a rather interesting analogy:
In this football season, nearly every team in the NFL use iPads as playbooks, replacing their traditional three ring paper binders. In the education market, schools continue to choose iPad and the great content available across apps, books and courses.
He then offered the details:
To-date, U.S. education institutions have purchased over 7 million iPads. In fact, we've sold over 750,000 iPads to K-12 schools in the State of Texas alone, including 7,000 iPads rolling out to all K-12 students in the Midway Independent School District...
...nearly 25,000 books have been created and published by individual educators using iBooks Author bringing lessons from life in exciting new ways. Over 1,000 institutions are delivering courses and content through iTunes U. At the Ohio State University where there are over 20,000 iPads on campus, faculty have developed over 70 iTunes U courses in less than one school year.
Better get your helmets and pads: it could be a tough dogfight in the classroom trenches for these two giants.
