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Comment by thr0waway1239 | Hacker News Reader

Considering Chromebooks barely entered the market only about 4 years back.

"In 2015, Chromebooks topped 50 percent of personal computer sales in the U.S. K-12 education market for the first time, with Windows PCs trailing at 22 percent, according to a Futuresource Consulting report."

And looking at the chart in the report [1] is even stranger - Chromebooks have basically gone from 16% of yearly device sales to 50% of yearly device sales [2] in exactly two years. Does anyone else finds the numbers a little hard to believe? Don't the schools have any costs in migrating their systems to support Chromebooks?

[1] http://www.futuresource-consulting.com/2016-03-K-12-Educatio...

Edit:

Based on csharp's comment, changed wording from market to yearly device sales. [2] (For K-12)

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These are all sales numbers, not market share.

Sales numbers are market share. Installed base is probably the term you're looking for.

numbers of devices, not numbers of dollars, is the distinction being made here I think.

Even though the numbers are pretty misleading, there are a couple interesting things in them. Presumably iOS had almost no market share in K-12 in 2009 (pre-iPad), yet it took 39% share by 2013. Then Chromebooks took that share and more. Maybe once a market gets disrupted there is an opening for another player to re-disrupt it since customers haven't had time to grow too attached.

My understanding is very few schools had a plan for making iPads effective classroom devices when they bought them. So for many, the attachment was zero.

But the other thing is, I don't think you're seeing a "disruption" of an existing market. In 2009 and before, nobody would ever have conceived of the insanity of buying one computer for every student. I think this is closer to a new market than anything else. Because neither iPads nor Chromebooks really infringe on the sorts of purchases most schools' IT purchases were prior: Computer labs and office PCs, which are likely predominantly still Windows. (And oddly excluded from these numbers.)

Actually, when this story by Futuresource first came out, it was a lot of fun to debunk. As mentioned by someone else, this is also new sales, not existing devices. But that's not the best part. It excludes desktop computers, which is pretty much the primary form of computing device bought by schools.

The claim that it's "50% of personal computer sales" in schools is completely false.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/03/googles-chromebooks-make-up-h... <- The word "sold" was added to this headline after I pointed out sales figures and devices in classrooms were not the same thing. I am still annoyed they didn't add in the world mobile. Apparently desktops aren't "devices" anymore?

That makes lot more sense.

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