“Laptops running Google’s Chrome operating system reached a milestone last quarter: For the first time ever, computer makers shipped more Chromebooks than all Apple desktops and laptops combined, according to IDC,” Hope King reports for CNNMoney.
“The popularity of Chromebooks is driven strongly by demand from K-12 schools. Chromebooks start at about $85, and they’re designed to run web-based applications,” King reports. “‘Cost is but one reason they are winning there,’ analyst Linn Huang told CNNMoney. ‘Google has also done a fantastic job building out a compelling management console that makes these devices easy to deploy and manage in a school setting. I’d argue, that has been the biggest driver of their growth as opposed to the low price.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Argue all you want, but if you worked at the average U.S. public school, sticker price is basically the ONLY reason.
“Chromebooks made up more than half of portable device shipments to U.S. schools last year, a growth of 12 percentage points over 2014,” King reports. “That rise has pushed Windows’ share down from 25% to 22% and Apple’s share of Mac shipments down from 34% to 25%, according to a recent report from Futuresource Consulting.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The cream-of-the-crop schools, like the cream-of-the-crop consumers and corporations, deploy Apple Macs and iPads, not cheapo plastic Chromebooks.
Unfortunately, too many U.S. public schools, unionized in the worst possible way, are broken through and through.
As we wrote back in January: There is no easy answer for a company dedicated to quality to compete in a market that’s hellbent on shortsightedly wasting taxpayers’ money on cheap, shitty junk.
SEE ALSO:
Why iPads are losing to Chromebooks in education, and what Apple needs to do about it – January 13, 2016
Should Apple make a ‘CloudBook’ for the education market? – January 12, 2016
Can education give Apple’s iPad a much-needed sales boost? – January 12, 2016
Apple delivers multi-user support for iPad – in schools only – January 11, 2016
Apple loses more ground to Google’s Chromebook in U.S. education market – January 11, 2016
Why Apple devices are losing share to Chromebooks in U.S. public schools – December 23, 2015
Apple CEO Cook on Google Chromebooks in U.S. schools: We’re not interested in making ‘test machines’ – December 11, 2015
Apple pivoting iPad education strategy to regain its footing in face of Google Chromebook surge – December 5, 2014
Damn straight!
And Chromebooks are… NETBOOKS!!!!
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
Cheap will outsell quality every time. Well done Screwggle, you’re the 5 and dime time of the new millennium. Aligning yourself to fiat is a blatant testament to your ambitions. Bravo.
Store*
Not always…
Cheap winblows phones never outsell quality iPhones.
So… Question is… WTF is wrong with freaking Apple that they don’t focus more on Macs.
Dance with the one who brought you yo the dance… The Mac.
Cheap, coupled with hundreds of visits to the White House during B Hussein Obama’s regime gave an enormous push through the Dept. of Education (he he.)
“Cheap will outsell quality every time.”
Ummm – have you watched what has gone on in the world in the last several decades.
– Netbooks… a whole business sector destroyed by the Air, except for this one recent exception.
– iPhone… Is there even such a thing as a “cell phone” any more?
– Android… A tiny share of the actual PROFIT in the mobile sector
– Dell… going down the tubes
– The whole Winblows PC industry – accelerating more and more rapidly downwards while Apple bucks the trend.
How much profit are Chromebooks making?
The reality is that a Chromebook is all the computer most people actually need. Google and its partners have done a good job creating an inexpensive computer that is easy to use, has a good browser, can do email, chat, Skype, edit documents, and all the basic things you need a computer. No, they are not powerful and you can’t do everything on them. But objectively, they do what most people need to do.
A Chromebook is replaced every year like a cheap PC or a VHS recorder (back in the day). The upper level schools won’t use them just the stupid who don’t know any better.
… and rather than make Macs superior in value and performance across the board, Apple decided to chase after Google Netbooks with hampered designs like the 2015 MacBook, and chasing after MS Surface with the big IPad + keyboard + stylus (oh, excuse me, “Pencil”.
Not impressed. Apple is lost.
You are so misinformed, such an idiot that I really don’t have time nor the inclination to respond any further. I will say, having worked for a pretty good-sized school district, I am not surprised, as their tech depts. are understaffed and by morons, and they go for what’s cheapest and easiest to manage. The Chromebooks fit their bill, which is pathetic. Fortunately, I have no kids plus I retired before the changeover.
Buy cheap, get cheap. This kind of behavior will eventually mirror into the rest of the world, people constantly looking for refurbs, discounted machines, clearance items, and the cheapest possible pieces of garbage. The economy doesn’t move, and CEOs become more powerful than ever.
Ok, so you know everything and everyone else is a moron. Got it. Seems to be a lot of that in Apple Apologist land.
Apple can’t keep charging premium prices for equipment that is no better performing than the competition. The problem isn’t Google’s freebie model, the problem is that Apple is now greedy and doesn’t listen to users. Cook has allowed Apple to become a classic bloated corporation. The evidence comes daily, if you just open your eyes.
The upper end the top 30% isn’t going to use or own a Chromebook for anything. Like going to Walmart.
As they say in the computer programming world: Shit in, shit out. You buy a shitty Chromebook, don’t expect the machine to last you longer than a year.
First burner phones, now burner Cromebooks. They should be placed in a section next to the burner phones. Cromebooks should quickly become the burner netbook of choice of drug dealers, criminals, and terrorists everywhere. “You want a Cromebook with that burner phone?” 🖖😀⌚️
I kinda wonder how it helps the economy when constantly producing cheap material. How much of it is wasted, and how quickly? With machines that obsolesce themselves within the span of 2 years, where do the machines go? Yes, they can be recycled, but seriously, how many people actually recycle their computers? Every day, I’m seeing old PCs sitting in the street waiting to be picked up by the garbage person faculty.
Probably wouldn’t be considered in that way.. Burner phones are such that the user can’t be tracked through the device’s ‘account’ (the phone number). Chromebooks log in to a Google Account so destroying the device does not destroy what you did with it. Totally pointless as a burner device. On the other hand as a device that is handed to young students that in most cases tend to treat their devices roughly and ‘forget’ or ‘accidentally destroy’ their homework it’s perfect.
In other news, the Toyota Prius outsold the Jaguar XJ last quarter
So you’re saying Apple has no business selling in the K-12 education market and should just sell to enthusiasts?
The private/public high end school districts won’t used them by and large, but the lower end school districts will and the kids at those schools will bear the lost.
Perhaps.. What do you propose as a solution? Fund those schools with tax money to reduce the digital divide? Community tech drives to raise funds for low-income schools? Seems the Chromebooks are doing the best job of reducing the digital divide given the current state of educational funding and are winning because of it.
Honestly I think the wealthiest company in the word should give hardware to schools at next to nothing to begin with.
My statement was really about not taking much from a comparison between selling a chromebook and a mac/ipad etc. By and large the target audience is different
I wonder if the U.S. gov would agree to having Apple provide HW at production cost to schools in exchange for a sufficiently reduced tax repatriation rate..
ChromeBooks are all but useless for anyone who wants to learn the graphics arts — or any visual arts.
Probably true, unless you are talking about the things that can be learned via webpage or remote access via browser.
a lot of chrome books are sold in Schools, Apple education market share in US has dropped to 10+% and Chromebooks gone up to 55% (might be higher now as the stats were from a while ago).
I’m no great genius in OSX coding but I was just wondering : if Apple TV can have a modified OSX and iOS is also derived from OSX can Apple make a variant to run Netbooks for education and other uses (like in the military , or banks etc), maybe have them controlled by a supervisor (like the class Teacher) on a central server/Mac or something. Then they can sell cheaper devices and NOT cannibalize Mac (running full OSX) sales. .
Note a lot of eduction folks besides saying price also said that keyboards were preferable to a lot of classwork like writing essays which dampens tablet sales.
One of the advantages of the Chromebooks is the strong cloud-based ecosystem behind it. I have doubts about Apple bringing out a successful competing device in the education market until they also shore up their cloud offerings.
good point.
—-
BTW why is Eddy Cue who does contracts with Rock Stars also in charge of Cloud?
You get what you pay for. My son’s charter school was starved for funds so they bought netbooks which were used primarily for test taking. They are totally underpowered BS. On the other hand, I bought a Win 10 “Kangaroo” (on a whim) which has the same specs as most chromebooks and has the form factor of my iPhone 6 s except about 1/2inch thicker for $100. Can use iPad as touch screen monitor or any HDMI monitor. Good portability for presentations when you don’t want to lug a laptop. Only use I’ve had was when my son needed a Win machine when his was acting up.
Looks like a pretty cool PC.. Though it is $100 for the unit, it appears you need to purchase a separate display device, keyboard and mouse to use it. I doubt you’ll make it any cheaper or more convenient than the Chromebook at present when you buy that other equipment.
Google just put another nail in Cooks coffin just as Google Chrome has wasted Safari on IOS devices. When will the board finally oust this faggit CEO
I can see by your post that you are a homophobic slacker who (most likely) is paid to put down Apple…
I thought samsung got out of that market years ago when they got caught. Hmm. 🙂
W.C. Fields said it best – “There’s a sucker born every minute” – which is why there’s a market for PC’s, Surface tablets, Android devices and Chromebooks.
If all you do is mostly web browsing, or can make due with the Google productivity apps, the for $250 for a Chromebook is all you need. And that fits a vast section of the population
Oh gawd! PUH-leaze! Can we just NOT recycle the, “Apple must also produce bargain basement crap or it’s doomed” argument?
Most of you are just wrong. Apple’s cheapest laptop is far too expensive to deploy broadly in k-12 public schools, which leaves iPads. Apple screwed the pooch with iPads by not making them easy to deploy or administer. They are trying to address that now, but it’s probably too little, too late. Remember: there have been lots of public schools who have *tried* to do large scale Apple roll outs and almost all of them have been failures. In my district, there was a huge one-to-one initiative with iPads and it failed completely largely because ( though admittedly, yes, some district incompetence) Apple simply has no interest in backend support in schools or the enterprise. Their admin tools are non-existent, they leave it to school districts to cobble together their own deployment strategy, and they don’t even offer accident insurance. Consider that last part again: they are selling computers and tablet devices to school children *and they don’t even offer accident insurance*. This isn’t news; it has always been the case. This is not a matter of any public or private school being stupid or cheap. Apple does not really want to be in the education market, period, because there is simply no huge profit to be made. You have to eke out pennies on the dollar, in volume and over time. And Apple has every right to ignore whatever market they wish to, but there is no need to falsely characterize the situation.
Chromebooks are good for Apple because they accelerate the demise of the Microsoft PC standard. Apple doesn’t want 100% of the market. They want the high end, most profitable segment. Therefore, there has to be something on the low end. Something cheap, kind of useful, but ultimately not as good. For a while, Windows was able to dominate both the low end and the top. Once Windows is gone, Chromebooks can be the cheap stuff people who can’t afford Apple buy. And give people a reason to dream about having enough money to buy Apple.
I would never want an American company to suffer for the sake of another. But it is true that MS is the main company to suffer from the growth of Chromebooks. It’s a great value and probably all that the average casual consumer needs.
It’s not a work tool that’s for sure, but for casual use its perfect.
My kid’s school uses chrome books. Every child is issued one at the start of school. 1600 kids at the school. Currently there are over 500 that are in boxes at the IT center as they stopped working or broke. One year…
These are kids we’re talking about. Depending on how the chromebooks were broke (e.g. dropped by student, soaked somehow, etc.) it was probably cheaper than an iPad meeting the same fate. And if accident insurance is involved (taking into Matthew’s post above) those chromebooks will probably be easily replaced vs. having to pay full price for a replacement iPad.
How is this news?! Talk about comparing apples and oranges!
A Chromebook is to a Macbook as a bicycle is to a motorcycle. Yes, they both have wheels and will take you from point A to point B, but there is a massive difference in capability and experience. It’s not even worth comparing.
Thinclients have outsold PCs in environments where they make sense for decades. There’s nothing new here.
“Going for the cheapest” is one of the primary reasons that U.S. education is in severe decline.