Thinking About Apple’s Education Play (Premium)

Yesterday, Apple revealed its belated response to Chromebook's domination in education. But once you get past the marketing whitewash, it's not clear why any credible K-12 institution would take up Apple on its new efforts.

Apple faces the same problem in education that Microsoft does, especially in the United States, where Chromebook now accounts for more shipments to this market than all of their offerings combined. And it's simply stated: Losing the education market is tantamount to losing the future because students entering the workforce will expect---will demand---that they be able to use the technologies with which they are familiar.

Some have expressed doubt to me about this concept. But I'll just point out the obvious: Every major trend is IT over the past 20 years was driven by user demands, not by IT needs or wants. The consumerization of IT, the push to mobile and the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) phenomenon, and user-managed solutions like SharePoint have all come about because of user frustrations. This isn't some future trend. It's all happening right now, and it will continue to happen.

In the wake of several initiatives---Windows 10 S, full Office in the Microsoft Store, education features in Microsoft Edge, the Set Up My School PCs program, Intune for Education, Minecraft Education Edition, and Office/Microsoft 365 among others---over the past year, I graded Microsoft an "A+" for its education efforts back in January. The point wasn't so much that Microsoft would win back share as a result of those efforts, but rather that the software giant was clearly taking the Chromebook threat seriously. And was doing everything it could to counter that threat as a result.

The army that Microsoft can go to war with here is straightforward and well-understood: It has excellent server and cloud services, great but complex client software, and a client platform---Windows---that has perhaps worn out its welcome. But it is at least a multipronged attack. And while some will correctly argue that Chrome retains an edge in some key areas that really matter in education---cost and simplicity, plus its growing recognition as an offering that just works---Microsoft, too, has its advantages.

But what about Apple?

It wasn't that long ago that Apple's primary contribution to education came in the form of Mac hardware, which it still discounts for students, teachers, and others in education. But Apple's fortunes have shifted decidedly over the past decade. And these days, with iPhone responsible for about 70 percent of its revenues and iOS overall combined with services responsible for about 95 percent, Apple's focus is quite different. And that is clearly impacting its education strategy.

For a brief moment in the early 2010's, it appeared that the iPad would be a huge success in education. And that this success could lead to the fulfillment of Steve Job's post-PC vision. But that success was short-lived: There are very few ...

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