Windows in Education: What Wasn’t Said (Premium)

As you may have read, Microsoft is again touting gains in the education market. But there are a few tidbits that the firm left out. And yes, they are the most important data points.

The education market is obviously very important to Microsoft: This market, by nature, represents the future. The future generations of people who will both use technology and determine which products their companies deploy and manage.

Historically, the education market has been split between Windows PCs and Macs, with the exact percentages of each varying by locale and over time. But with the broader personal computing market evolving thanks to the web and mobile, education, suddenly, is in play. And a new competitor, Chromebook, has risen out of literally nowhere to assume a dominant role today in the United States and, increasingly, other markets as well.

So Microsoft is fighting back. And as is so often the case, it is literally doing everything it can, in this case to wrestle back control of the education market before Chromebook can take over the world. After all, a generation of kids educated on Chromebooks and Google services will expect—will demand—that technology when they enter the workforce. Employers will start seeking out those with Google Sheets skills, not Excel skills.

I am not here to denigrate Microsoft’s efforts here. As noted, the software giant is making a major push. It started with last year’s education event, at which it also introduced the Surface Laptop and Windows 10 S. And it continued throughout 2017, with Microsoft in December noting a bit of progress. Then, in January, it also announced new updates to Microsoft Education, including a new Chemistry update for Minecraft: Education Edition, new MR content for Windows Mixed Reality, and cheap new Windows 10 2-in-1 PCs.

I previously examined Microsoft’s progress and determined that the company had cherry-picked some data from a Futuresource quarterly report to bolster its claims. The most important bit, I think, is that Microsoft’s progress, such as it was, came from just a single quarter’s worth of data. We need more information than that to determine if what Microsoft is doing is working.

Well, it’s a quarter later. And Microsoft is again touting a Futuresource report and making claims of progress. Specifically, it calls out the following facts related to Windows in education:

• More K-12 schools in the US are choosing affordable Windows devices. (“More” compared to what?)
• Windows share grew an additional 6.5 points on devices under $300 – reaching its highest share in four years in this category. (This is a sub-category, albeit a big one, I bet.)
• Every month, over one million new Windows 10 devices are being used by students in K-12 and higher education.

And that’s about it.

So what I’d like to highlight here are some interesting items that Microsoft did not mention at all in its education update. And some other facts from the Futuresource report that Microsoft is using as evidence.

Windows 10 S. The highlight of Microsoft’s education focus last year was the little operating system that couldn’t, Windows 10 S. It failed so completely that Microsoft canceled it and will instead incorporate an optional S mode” into mainstream Windows 10 versions instead. And the firm didn’t mention Windows 10 S once in its education announcement this week. Not once.

Those education PCs are not running Windows 10 S. I pointed this out before, but when Microsoft discusses education PCs, many assume that those devices are going out the door running Windows 10 S. They’re not. Schools have a choice, and there are no examples, major or otherwise, of any choosing Windows 10 S. Again, Windows 10 S has failed.

Surface Laptop. While it’s unclear how a $1000+ laptop factors at all in the education market, this was the only decent Windows 10 S device that ever shipped, and Microsoft announced it at their education event last year. It has sold so poorly that it barely registers on usage surveys. Even Surface Book 2 is outselling it. And Microsoft, of course, never mentioned Surface Laptop in this week’s announcement. Why would they?

Only Chromebook grew in the U.S. through all of 2017. Microsoft’s growth data for Windows only includes the second half of 2017, when overall sales volumes declined dramatically. If you look at all of 2017, only Chromebook grew in 2017. Windows PC sales fell slightly in 2017. The victim here was Apple (iPad, Mac), not Chromebook. “Chromebooks are widely adopted in US schools,” the report notes.

Chromebook is number one in the U.S. While growth is an interesting data point, it’s important to remember that Chromebook “continues to hold a majority share of the U.S. education market, reaching … 58.3% of devices shipped during 2017,” Futuresource says.

It’s not just the U.S. There are 7.6 billion people in the world, but only 323 million of them live in the United States. So why is Microsoft focusing on U.S. numbers only here? Because Chromebook usage grew more than that of Windows worldwide in 2017, too. And it grew more in the previous two quarters sequentially.

My conclusion is that Microsoft understands that perception matters, so it is naturally highlighting the data that provides a positive spin. While doing so, it is likewise doing everything it can to counter the dominance of Chromebook in education, and it makes sense to start in the U.S market.

But I have this visual in my mind of the worldwide education market slipping through its virtual fingers, if you will, while it does so. That is, shoring up the U.S. education market makes sense, but it needs to prevent Chromebook from every gaining a foothold internationally too.

My suspicion, then, is that Microsoft will broaden its education focus this coming year internationally. It really needs to get ahead of this before it begins losing share everywhere.