This is the race to conquer the classrooms

The education sector is one of the fronts on which companies have their eyes set It is a juicy market that offers many possibilities in addition to serving as a breeding ground for those children in the future to want to continue using your system, the system with which they grew up.

At first Apple knew how to see the reef, when nobody had noticed. With the iPad and educational applications, it entered a market until then almost deserted and eager to enter new technologies. Apple had entered but it was not the only company that had seen possibilities.

There was Google and its Chromebooks and also Microsoft, with Windows 8.1 and later with Windows 10. But let's start with Google, which is the one that knew best how to see where the needs and satisfy them before anyone else.

We have talked about the iPad, an excellent tablet that lacks an adequate keyboard to take advantage of as only a computer can offer. This aspect favored the massive arrival of two-in-one devices and also, together with some applications perhaps focused on young students, made those from Cupertino lose the race in favor of Google.

And it is that those of Mountain View saw where the needs were better than anyone. A controlled, closed environment was needed, with complete applications and cheap equipment and that's how Chromebooks arrived thanks to the association of the search engine company with manufacturers who have launched equipment market at very competitive prices.The desktop solution offered by Google is more than attractive.

This translates into figures in which Google continues to grow in terms of presence in classrooms Of the 12.6 million mobile devices purchased in US schools in 2016, Chromebooks are in the majority at 58% (up from 50% in 2015). An enviable brand followed by Microsoft with 22% of the market and Apple, which from being the dominant one has gone from 22% to 19%, figures provided by Future Source.

Apple has made a mistake and is to focus on the iPad and leaving aside affordable equipment in the form of laptops. And it is that the MacBook Pro or the MacBook Air are excellent machines, but not cheap enough to be purchased by educational institutions. Apple has not seen the market as Google did and as Microsoft has seen it.

If not included in the equation, Microsoft has come to occupy the second step in this race to conquer the educational market, something that It has been possible above all due to the participation of large _partners_ who, together with Microsoft and the free licenses of Windows 10, have placed very affordable equipment in classrooms.

And once they have the bases, all that remains is to distribute the _software_, you _software_, following the example of what Google has done, which has known to offer a really simple operating system that fits like a glove to what is demanded in the classroom. An ecosystem that also has the cloud and group control that makes it ideal for teachers and students.

From Redmond, seeing the idea, they have ideal applications (OneNote, OneDrive, Outlook...), the best known being Office 365, which is already given away in many centers to students and teachers.In addition, to gain market share, Microsoft made its office suite a multiplatform application, so that it can be used on iOS, Android and, of course, Windows, that its distribution park is larger.

In addition From Redmond they continue to bet on this market, something that is demonstrated with the launch of tools such as Microsoft Intune for Education, a way to manage devices in a group in a simple way so that a closed and controlled environment is achieved. A tool to which Windows 10 Cloud is now added, a cloud-based system that only allows you to install applications from the Windows Store.

Via | New York Times In Xataka | The iPad as king of schools has a rival: Google and its Chromebooks