“Microsoft is looking to make a bigger splash in the education segment for both its hardware and search divisions, offering schools the ability to earn free Surface RT units in exchange for regular use of its Bing search platform,” Kevin Bostic reports for AppleInsider.
“The firm announced on Wednesday a new Bing for Schools pilot program for more than 800,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Atlanta Public Schools, Fresno Unified School District, Detroit Country Day School, and a few other school districts,” Bostic reports. “With the new program, Microsoft will be providing an ad-free, privacy-enhanced Bing search experience for students and faculty. In this sense, the firm will be taking on Google, which dominates the Internet search industry in both market and mind share.”
Bostic reports, “The Surface RT units come in as an incentive to get students using Microsoft’s search option.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The only incentive Microsft is providing is for parents to move their students to competent school systems.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
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Class-action suit filed against Microsoft over Surface tablet flop -August 13, 2013
Desperate Microsoft cuts Surface Pro tablet prices; could signal even more losses – August 6, 2013
Microsoft’s Surface sales figures are in, and they’re a total disaster – July 30, 2013
Microsoft earnings, sales badly miss expectations; $900 million inventory writedown on Surface tablet flop – July 18, 2013
Gartner: Apple to overtake Microsoft in total OS sales in 2015 – June 25, 2013
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Steve Jobs’ revenge – April 12, 2013
Apple Macintosh on the rise as Windows PC market plummets – April 11, 2013
Gartner: PC Market posts 11.2 percent decline in Q113; Apple Mac sales up 7.4 percent in U.S. – April 10, 2013
IDC: PC shipments post the steepest decline ever in a single quarter, down 13.9% in Q113 – April 10, 2013
This is entirely consistent with Steve Ballmer’s conception of charity of giving away his used underpants for free. He’ll claim a charitable deduction from the IRS too.
Captain Ballmer on board the RMS Titanic announcing, ““There’s no cause for alarm, we’re only stopping briefly to take on a little ice.”
This is the true of a monopoly. 900 million loss? No big deal, we got that automatic revenue generating gov approved system going full blast. We can make all the crap no one wants at a loss, lock them in the office POS/Wind/Sharepiss systems and we are golden!
Disgusting way of dumping Microsoft’s enormous overstock of junk tablets that no one is willing to buy (at any price) on innocent children and uninformed school staff. Just shameful.
What kid will be terribly excited after teachers tell them “No it’s not the Apple iPad but the Microsoft Surface RT. You haven’t heard of it? No problem, nobody else has either dear.”
And they dump them on poor districts who can’t say no and are desperate. I bet Steve Balmer was hoping for another Katrina type storm to unload these things on.
Just wait until they download all of the available software for Windows RT devices…it won’t take long.
Microsoft couldn’t sell these tablets so now they will dump them into the schools. Wow. They should have just put them in a landfill somewhere.
Feducation is a landfill.
Detroit Country day is a private school. One which Steve Ballmer attended himself as a child.
Wow, he must have hated going to school, the way he’s punishing them
“…in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Atlanta Public Schools, Fresno Unified School District…”
like I said, Feducation IS a landfill.
This is the private sector preying on schools, botvinnik. Get a friggin’ clue. You aren’t even mildly entertaining anymore.
It is not my function to entertain you Melvin. If it was my goal to entertain you Melvin, I would upload shadow pictures of Bunny Rabbit and Mr. Crocodile.
enjoy.
Build your own garden paver path… out of Surface tablets!
This is low, even by Microsoft standards… Victimize our kids by unloading their junk that they can’t even give away on them. Then force Bing upon them. Only true a-holes can come up with a plan like this.
Surface RT and Bing: the greatest incentives to student achievement since the willow switch and the dunce cap.
I’ve got Bing on my iPad mini and hate it, but I hate gaggle more. I wish Apple would put DuckDuckGo as the default. Or better yet, Apple’s own search engine.
Exactly! Firstly, poor kids! They’ll be indoctrinated even further but now it’ll be using terrible devices with unintuitive features. I heard all the girls get catholic school girl outfits with theirs and all the boys get skinny jeans and two free years worth of counseling which they’ll need after trying to use the tablets. And, B, 😉 I’d love to see an Apple search engine but would rather see better function of the iCloud and mac/me email addresses so I can dump my 20+ gmail addresses!
That is funny!
The dunce cap comment!
What WON’T be happening when the children receive their Surface RT:
This type of helping ‘the children’ got us prohibition.
Didn’t the Los Angeles Unified School District just purchase several thousand iPads? Why would they even bother?
Maybe the bean counters will argue to send them back to Apple or cancel the order. Free vs Paid. Who wins?
Yes they are. My granddaughter will be getting an iPad like next week here in Los Angeles and no they are not returning the iPads for Surface junk.
800,000 vs iPad program. Free vs Paid. Schools are desperate for money. MS has just found a way to derail the iPad program. Unlike Apple that needs to make a profit by actually selling compelling products, MS got that automatic money making gov approved system!
Yes, but programs like this will be assessed a few years down the road. If student performance improves or dropout rates decline and can be correlated with the adoption of these devices and participation in Microsoft’s program, that would be a green light to continue. The problem is that continued availability of these devices is problematic because Microsoft can pull the plug at any time, rendering any positive assessment moot. And they are likely to pull the plug, because (a) If acceptance in the general marketplace continues to stagnate, Microsoft will stop making them; and (2) if sales pick up, the company will drop the school discounts or discontinue the program. Because of this bleak prospect, schools facing a Hobson’s choice of a shaky commercial incentive/reward system versus anemic state support should think twice before gambling with students’ futures.
Hey BLN, is that Hobson guy related to you?
If only the decision makers think like you…one can hope.
The “decision makers” are often hamstrung by politically appointed/elected school boards.
“…Microsoft looking to make a splash…” No one notices because you’re circling the bowl! But, hey, the Surface RT could be a teaching aid: “One more warning and then you’ll get a Surface assigned to you the rest of the semester!”
BiNGO! (Buy None, Get One)
Ok kids, save up those bottle caps and we’ll give you a free bag of cow pies!
If Microsoft gives it away, it’s a 100% loss. Not just the $150 (discount) per unsold unit, that is supposedly the calculation for 6 million unsold units and the the $900 million loss last quarter.
So… A total loss would be more than 2X the hit of the $900 million loss. Can we expect to see another $1.5 to $2 BILLION loss from Surface RT? And that’s not even considering Surface Pro. Microsoft probably produced just as many (if not more), and the potential loss per unsold unit is even larger.
I guess Microsoft can at least claim a tax deduction…
If you look at the school districts in the article, they are not exactly top notch school districts. Those students already suffered enough, they deserve better. Giving them Surface RT to use?! Is Microsoft true intention is to destroy the school districts and the students ??
And when proposing it as an alternative to the iPad, Balmer will tell the school each Surface is “worth” [some bloated figure / full price before mark down ].
This is what MS did before: instead of paying a fine to the EU, they dumped a number of Windows licenses on European schools and claimed each was worth some crazy full retail figure.
I mean, MS has the routine down! They are like the conman who got caught, and, when the judge asks for the fine, says: “sorry your Honor, I don’t seem to have the cash on me right now, would you mind taking that in bridges?”
To Microsoft ,
Don’t harm our innocent students , if u want , just find me !
someone call 911 !!! Hurry!!!
Incentive or Bribe.
Child Abuse!
School districts are facing two crunches right now. The current trends in ed. tech. are to move to 1 to 1 computing and provide a robust platform for that. But they have suffered financially since the crash of ’08. So tech companies that offer the moon will find someone, somewhere to take them up on it. Sadly, the St. Paul Public School System has just signed on with Dell for their Learning Management System. Yet Dell is going down the drain. Desperation leads to poor decision-making.
Note to kids stuck with these:
Give them the shock test.
From the 3rd story balcony. 🙂
Surface 4 foot shock test FAIL:
Those parents should look for a school with the proper curriculum and not get bluffed by junky inferior equipment,
A friend was in an Apple store in a NH Mall last night and stopped counting when she reached 100 customers.On the way out of the Mall she had no problem s counting the one person in Balmer’s Eight Ball equipment store front. How do ya like me now?
Microsoft please!
TAKE PITY ON THE CHILDREN!
😥 😥 😥
Seriously Microsoft. Instead of abusing children with cack-ware, you could have inspired THIS:
Bing is actually pretty good these days. And getting better.