Assessing Microsoft’s Progress in Education (Premium)

Two years ago, I sounded the alarm: Microsoft cannot afford to lose the education market to Google services and Chromebooks. Since then, the software giant has unleashed an impassioned effort to improve its education offerings and halt Google’s progress.

It started with the infamous education event in May 2017 at which Microsoft introduced Surface Laptop, a luxury MacBook Air competitor that has never, and will never, find a home in the cash-strapped education market. Introducing Surface Laptop at that event was really about launching Windows 10 S, an offering that was, to put it politely, ahead of its time. And while something like this may someday make sense for education—and for individuals and businesses, too—let’s just say it failed and move on.

The good news? Surface Laptop was Microsoft’s only education misstep over the past two years. And while outside forces like Chromebooks and even Apple’s uninspiring iPad education push may have their effect, it’s clear that Microsoft is taking all the right steps to win back this crucial market.

And let’s be clear: Education is crucial. If a generation of students grows up using Google services on Chromebooks, they will collectively expect to use those products when they enter the workforce, a seismic change that will forever impact the way that work gets done. And this isn’t a theory: For the past decade or more, businesses have been dealing with the so-called “consumerization of IT,” in which, yes, workers expect to have access, at work, to the same technologies they use at home.

That trend provides an interesting playbook for Microsoft—and its competitors—to follow in education. The reason people wish to use tech products and services like iPhones and Dropbox at work is because these things have proven themselves invaluable in their private lives. They like using these products. And they perceive that their lives are better in doing so.

Microsoft’s task, then, is to do likewise for its own products and services in education. And the audiences they are trying to appeal to are as obvious as they are diverse: They must work for school administrators, educators, and students, must be affordable, and they must be as good or better than what the competition offers.

And that’s problematic. Where Apple’s inept education strategy makes it a non-event, Google is doing to Microsoft now what Microsoft did to established players like IBM, Novell, Sun, and others in the 1990’s: It’s making simpler, less expensive, and more easily managed alternatives. And it is seeing great growth, in this case in education, as a result. Schools and other educational institutions don’t just use Chromebooks and Google services because they’re inexpensive—though that gets them into the conversation—it’s doing so because they work and are well-liked. The services are absolutely good enough, and Chromebooks are simple to use and, better, easy enough to manage that many schools don’t even need dedicated IT staff, or at least much of it.

So this is new territory for Microsoft. But for those that gripe that the firm’s inability to compete in consumers spells doom for the future, I will instead point to education. Both because it is even more important than the consumer market—indeed, success in education can and should feed future successes there—and because Microsoft is firing on all cylinders in education. This should be a sign of hope for anyone worried about the future.

But this isn’t really about you. It’s about Microsoft.

And over the past two years, I’ve watched as the software giant has taken step after step to improve its standing in education. At a very core level, the firm has created a new dashboard called Set Up My School PCs that helps teachers or admins to set up and configure new PCs using a simple wizard that mimics Google’s offerings. It has put full Office in the Microsoft Store, added Intune for Education for device management, and has made Office 365 for Education available for free for teachers and students worldwide.

Speaking of free, Microsoft purchased Flipgrid, an education start-up that’s viewed as a sort of “YouTube for education,” and made that available for free to all schools. It also brought Microsoft 365—its “Microsoft as a service” offering to educational customers, along with Microsoft Teams for Education. It has made steady gains against Chromebook from a growth perspective, repeatedly highlighting those times in which Windows PC sales in education have outstripped those of Chromebooks. It has worked with PC makers to improve the hardware offerings for education to include tablets, 2-in-1s, and HoloLens and Mixed Reality. And it has expanded Minecraft in Education in exciting ways.

This week, Microsoft is back with a new set of milestones. And it’s not alone: In keeping with its core strength—sometimes its core weakness—in PCs, it is working with PC makers to bring ever more interesting innovation to the education market. Again, this important: Positive experiences with technology in education will guide expectations later in life.

Mehedi has written up some of the key Microsoft and PC maker announcements from this week’s Bett conference in London. Bett, as you may know, is the educational market’s biggest annual trade show, and as was the case last year, there’s a lot of news.

Here’s what excites me.

Big numbers. Microsoft cites some impressive statistics showing its success in education. For example, there are 1 million new Windows PCs being used by students at all levels every month. 155 million active users of Office 365 Education. And 16 million monthly active users of Microsoft’s amazing Learning Tools.

Big bets that are paying off. Microsoft didn’t just expand Minecraft in Education, it created over 500 lesson plans to help educators get started. A new educator joins Flipboard every 55 seconds, and the service sees 980,000 videos shared every single day. Microsoft has donated over $1.4 billion in software and services to over 96,000 schools and nonprofit organizations.

Hardware innovations. Two years ago, the PCs that we saw at Microsoft’s education event were all low-end, cheap beater boxes. At BETT, there is a stunning array of new PC designs—still in the affordable $200 to $320 range—that offer innovative and modern features like USB-C ports, smartpens, convertible and 2-in-1 designs, and epic battery life. Most are drop proof and/or spill-proof.

Smartpen innovations. This one is really exciting: Microsoft is now offering a low-cost Microsoft Classroom Pen as an alternative to Surface Pen; aimed at the K-12 market, it’s smaller and more rugged, and costs just $40 per pen (in boxes of 20 units), less than half the price of Surface Pen. It’s also compatible with all Surface PCs and with a growing range of third-party PCs as well. Additionally, Lenovo is selling a 300e PC (for just $290) that lets you use Windows Ink on-screen with a common and inexpensive #2 pencil. You have to see this one to believe it.

Software innovations. Building on its previous efforts, Microsoft is adding 13 new features to Teams for Education, including Grade Sync, Grade Team Assignments on mobile, Turnitin integration for plagiarism detection, and MakeCode access. Flipgrid is expanding access to my.flipgrid.com to students. Microsoft’s Learning Tools are getting integrated translation capabilities and support for math. And Microsoft is partnering with Victory VR to bring STEM content to students using Windows Mixed Reality, with 25 hours of free VR content.

Accessibility innovations. To assist students aged 7-11 with visual impairments, Microsoft is transferring control of Code Jumper, a physical programming language, to the American Printing House for the Blind so that more people can benefit. Based on a Microsoft research effort called Project Torino, Code Jumper uses physical objects to help students learn about computational thinking. It will be available in Australia, Canada, India, the UK, and the US this year. And Microsoft says it will be made available worldwide over the next five years.

What this all adds up to, I think, is another great year for Microsoft in education. And while there will continue to be outside factors that Microsoft can’t control—I’m curious to see what Google announces this week, too, of course—the software giant’s continued efforts here are substantial and seem to be having a positive impact. There was a time, perhaps two or three years ago, when Microsoft seemed to be letting this market slip through its fingers. Today, it is clear that education is a priority for the firm. And that Microsoft can still turn things around when a market really matters.