“I am not going to predict that they are going to take back the entire market or anything like that, but this is the best move<br />that I could have seen them making against Chromebooks,” said J. P. Gownder, a technology analyst at Forrester Research, a market research company, where Microsoft is one of his clients.<br />By contrast, Mr. Gownder of Forrester Research said<br />that Microsoft software is so feature-rich that technology experts in many school districts have had to devote their summers to preparing Windows laptops for students one device at a time.<br />While Microsoft had successfully developed a loyal following among teachers for certain tools — like Skype<br />and its OneNote notebook organizer program — the company had no answer for the classroom management system, which Google had developed specifically for teachers.<br />Chromebooks accounted for 58 percent of the 12.6 million mobile devices shipped to primary<br />and secondary schools in the United States last year, compared with less than 1 percent in 2012, according to Futuresource Consulting, a research company.<br />Apple recently introduced an iPad management app called Classroom, which enables teachers to assign shared iPads to students<br />and create virtual classrooms to guide students through lessons.<br />By contrast, Windows laptops and tablets made up 21.6 percent of the mobile-device shipments<br />to schools in the United States last year, down from about 43 percent in 2012.
