Windows XP End of Life: Chromebooks As a Replacement?
The VAR Guy recently visited his son’s high school. During that field trip, our resident blogger noticed several dozen Windows XP systems — which will face Microsoft’s XP end of life deadline on April 8, 2014. Microsoft (MSFT) could win lots of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 business as schools dump older offerings. But then again another big winner could be Google Chromebooks from Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, Samsung and Toshiba. Here’s why.
Roughly 22 percent of U.S. school districts now run Google Chromebooks, the low-cost, cloud-centric notebooks, according to Business Insider. Admittedly, some of those schools may have only a handful of Chromebooks. But NPD Group, a market research firm, claims Chromebooks represented 3.3 percent of back-to-school system sales.
At first glance that’s a tiny figure compared to the massive Windows market. But consider these variables:
- Can Microsoft really afford to lose market share and Windows XP upgrade opportunities when the overall PC market has been contracting?
- Will Chromebooks gain even more momentum since the the cloud-based design eliminates the need for time-consuming desktop upgrades?
Somewhere, Google’s channel partners must be smiling. Cloud Sherpas — a Top 100 Cloud Services Provider — has offered and supported Chromebooks for some customers. And K-12 resellers seem to be kicking the Chromebook tires more and more frequently, The VAR Guy has heard during a few private conversations.
The bottom line: Microsoft wants thousands of Windows XP customers — including schools — to jump to Windows 8.1 in 2014 or sooner. But some schools are instead making a leap of faith to Google Chromebooks.
How many schools are going that route? The VAR Guy is still searching for answers…
The strong possibility of
The strong possibility of Google ChromeBooks or any Linux based devices being adopted in worthwhile numbers in USA schools systems is probably quite small and insignificant.
Why?
Because the thinking and culture of Americans regarding technology is decidedly toward Microsoft, and all the company has to do in 2014 when XP retires is offer “Free” – that is without costs Windows 7 or Windows 8X to “every” educational institution i this country expressing interest in migrating to a non-Microsoft environment.
This is the reality of technology adoption here, unlike in the rest of the developed world where there are more pragmatic, thoughtful and non-ideological USA patriotic decision-making processes at work. Many European, Asian and South American countries have investigated thoroughly and concluded that the Microsoft anvil is detrimental to their education systems, governments’ operations and business community that is not beholden to the corporate mandates from USA. That is why UNIX/Linux adoption in these places is exploding exponentially.
It is a nice pipe dream of having Linux gain significantly at the demise of Windows XP, but only that, a misguided pipe dream.
I respectfully disagree.
I respectfully disagree. While traditional “Linux” never became a mainstream success in schools, Google Apps has the attention of K-12 schools and colleges. That momentum could pull schools toward Chromebooks…
-jp
Chromium OS is as “open
Chromium OS is as “open source” as Android (i.e. not very open at all). Going from one proprietary OS to another one is not really an improvement… And all data “in the cloud”… waiting to be stolen and / or abused…
Marty: I believe Chromebooks
Marty: I believe Chromebooks and ChromeOS have momentum. But I can’t argue your points. They seem on the mark to me, though I really do value both Chromebooks and PCs…
-jp
With the availability of
With the availability of Cheap Android tabs, and Netbooks under $150.00 Android is My choice.
You can get an 8 gig Android netbook for $125.00
nowdays in a 10 inch screen wifi easy.
it can be made as secure as a Mac, or Winblows
machine by easy to create apps.
just a thought further, You could all but eliminate
Crowded Classrooms with mobile schools cheaper
than maintaining a big building.
with school attendence only required less than
once weekly, by subsidizing poorer households
connections to the net, bringing per student costs
down to less than $1500.00 per school Year
Sam
The 3.3% of back to school
The 3.3% of back to school NPD estimates are general retail sales to individuals, not sales to schools which are specially registered for school domains, and sold directly through Google’s resellers, and which are not counted in the 3.3% NPD market research. NPD’s Q2 2013 estimates for Chromebooks was 5% of total Desktop/laptops sold in the US. The back to school sales actually represent a slight drop for Chromebook sales – presumably because those buying BYOD devices tend to buy Windows or Macbooks if they are not certain about WiFi access or app requirements in school.
The numbers of Chromebooks exceed the amount that they would appear to be at first sight based on the 22% of school districts figure. This is because a large proportion of Chromebooks in schools are on a 1:1 deployment unlike Windows or Macbooks in schools which are generally uneconomical and impractical to deploy on a 1:1 basis because of the heavy maintenance and labour intensive nature or Windows and Macbook managed deployment.
Hi Anonymous. Do you
Hi Anonymous. Do you represent NPD?
-jp
Yeah, all MS has to do is
Yeah, all MS has to do is offer free OS upgrades to schools …
but they *HAVEN’T.*
Any loss of market share to Linux is significant.
Go Chromebooks! 🙂
I could potentially see
I could potentially see Microsoft offering “free” Windows 8.x upgrades tied to long-term Office 365 licenses….
-jp
I work as a network admin in
I work as a network admin in K-12 education. I can tell you Chromebooks are a huge option in K-12 purchasing right now. All schools will be required to do online testing and Chromebooks are the cheapest approved testing device.
Also, most schools have utilised OEM licensing in their desktop purchases for which Microsoft is pressuring school districts to enter into anuall license agreements. With this agreement we can run windows 7 or 8 on all our machines for the low cost of only a few dollars per person. This equated to around $25,000 per year for our districs of 7,000 students and roughly 2,000 computers. This includes access to Office-365.
The computers running XP tend to be 8-12 years old, Pentium 4 machines donated or purchased years ago. Anything dual-core or newer has Win7 OEM license. We would be paying $25,000 per year to keep antique hardware running only to access the web, type papers, and handle online testing. All of these tasks can be handled in Chromebooks or in Ubuntu.
Microsofts bid to gouge K-12 education for anual service fees is not going over well and many districts are waking up to the fact that 1) Windows is dead, and 2) Kids do not care what OS they use.
Your closing line is an
Your closing line is an eye-opener. Kids truly don’t care about the OS. My own son is on a Chromebook and never skipped a beat…
-jp
wanderson there is a problem
wanderson there is a problem even if Windows 8 or Windows 7 is given to schools for free a lot of the old hardware that XP is on is not Windows 8 or Windows 7 compadible. ChromeOS devices are in fact cheaper to aquire than new PC units.
Suppressing interest this time around is a lot harder.
The next problem is even if the gain at XP death is small its still a foot hole.
I believe Google’s gain will
I believe Google’s gain will be small but significant. And that’s potentially painful when Microsoft’s core PC market is shrinking…
-jp
“It is a nice pipe dream of
“It is a nice pipe dream of having Linux gain significantly at the demise of Windows XP, but only that, a misguided pipe dream.”
I disagree. People who try either Linux Peppermint 4 or Zorin 6.4 core will experience not a pipe dream, but a very pleasant reality indeed.
Peppermint? Zorin? For most
Peppermint? Zorin? For most kids and educators those are foreign terms. But Chrome and ChromeOS? That brand is growing…
-jp
There’s a difference between
There’s a difference between an OS upgrade and buying new machinery. I suspect many institutions bought equipment during the sad “Vista” episode of Windows by putting XP on machines made for the more demanding OS, and those machines have plenty of guts for either W7 or W8.1. If they can get another couple of years from those units, that’s what they’ll do. The PC sales slump this year was almost entirely due to the pending termination of XP while Microsoft released a flawed “version 1” of its own OS. An IT manager who moved a fleet of machines from XP to W8 this year deserves to be fired. Moving to W7 or W8.1 next year or letting Moore’s Law discount new equipment is perfectly rational and PC / Windows sales will be strong next year.
Anonymous: Are you a
Anonymous: Are you a Microsoft channel partner? Potential Windows 7/Windows 8.1 customer for 2014? Just curious where you stand in the industry. Thanks.
-jp
The only way to keep clean
The only way to keep clean your computer is to Sanitize the HD and install the Windows. No firewall or windows updates can protect your computer from INTRUDERS. Many web sites dictate you to turn on Cookies, (to open the back door for them). So do not keep anything in your computer. Use a TEMP folder and transfer anything you download, or create, to a memory stick. For sensitive things use a 16GB class 10 micro SD card. Frequently wipe out the hard drive with Dban Boot and Nuke. Three passes on a 250GB HD is completed in 3 hours. Make sure to put a fan under you computer because the cleaning is completed under the DOS, and computer overheats and shut down in the middle of the process. Before formatting the HD make sure there are no problems with the HD sectors. Run from Command COM CHKDSK then CHKDSK /F and after CHKDSK /R before formatting with Boot and Nuke. Finally reinstall windows, or the cloning of your HD with drivers and most important utility programs. I use two identical laptops with windows XP SP3, can swap the HD, and I have the disk with factory program to rewrite the sectors of HD, and Flash the BIOS. This 2 laptops are exposed in more insecure web sites where I can get most information from unsecured sites. With another laptop with windows 7 I take less risks and the other with windows 8 is used for skype, and fun.
And when internet will abolish Windows XP you still can use this PC for OFFICE, Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop 7, and create or run programs in Quick Basic that are easer to write and not weaker than C++ even in graphics too.