U.S. schools are buying up Google's Chromebooks, causing them to rival Apple's iPad for education supremacy.
Chromebook sales will reach 5.2 million this year, Gartner reported, according to the Guardian, but that number is only a fraction of the 316 million market PC market. Not to worry, tech analysts have seen that coming.
“What is happening is that the monolithic PC is getting carved up into jobs that other objects can do better,” Horace Dediu, head of Asymco consultants, told the Guardian. “What used to be “computing” is now a set of individual tasks and a task may be better done by a product/service combo rather than trying to force a PC to do it.”
In 2013, schools bought 85 percent of the 2.9 million Chromebooks sold and also is expected to buy 14.4 million units in 2017. The low-cost Chromebooks seems to be expanding despite most PCs losing customers, likely because computers under $300 are appealing to many industries, including education. Samsung, Acer and HP are among those making Chromebooks.
It's likely the cost of Chromebooks that brings them into schools, as well as the browser-centered platform, but will it beat out Apple's iPad? Time will tell.
