14 DAY TRIAL // Google's crazy gamble seems to be paying off, with 51% of all new PC sales to K12 schools in Q3 2015 being Chromebooks, according to data compiled by Future Source Consulting in their #EdTech K-12 Market Report.
Chromebooks, custom-built laptops that run Google's minimal ChromeOS operating system, have been a disappointment for avid gamers and heavy-duty enterprises but are heaven-sent for the educational sector.
Here, their extremely low cost has allowed universities, schools, and parents to equip employees, students, and children with a functional laptop that covers all the basic utilities they need in regular school work.
While many observers could see this Chromebooks trend taking off during the past year, with more and more students showing up at classes with Chromebooks in their hands, and with Chromebooks popping up in laboratories around the US, personal observations are now backed up by some solid numbers from Future Source.
According to sales numbers from the past three months, in the US, Google sold 1.63 million Chromebooks to K12 schools, accounting for 51% of all the sales.
Other countries where Google fared well include Canada, where it accounted for 41% of all sales, Denmark with 23%, and Sweden with 20%.
Google Chromebooks aren't the perfect fit for schools outside the US
Unfortunately for Google, Chromebooks sales around the globe are still in the low teens.
To blame for this situation is the lack of a central decision-making mechanism for educational investments. This generally affects schools in the EU, where the famous European bureaucracy has given each school the power to decide on its equipment investments.
Additionally, connectivity is still an issue for most schools around the world, with very few places where Internet is assured at proper speeds, let alone good enough to ensure that cloud services like the ones Google provides work at regular parameters.
But as Internet connection speeds grow, the extremely low price of Chromebooks will play a factor for other schools, just as it did in the US.
