
The Google Play store, coming to a Chromebook near you - tekacs
https://chrome.googleblog.com/2016/05/the-google-play-store-coming-to.html?m=1
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ramblenode
It looks like the year of the Linux desktop will finally come and Linux users
will converge on a common package manager: the Google Play Store.

The universe certainly has a great sense of irony.

~~~
paulddraper
I was just saying this. The year of the Linux desktop, with the Chrome distro
and Play package manager. Irony indeed :/

(And tangentially, let's not forget: Java running on lots and lots of scaled
down hardware.)

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MarkMc
Meh. Wake me up when the Google Play store comes to a Chrome browser on
Windows or Mac

~~~
xbmcuser
That is going to happen in a year or two as well. Thats the reason I feel they
are removing chrome apps from other OS apart from chromebooks.

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bobajeff
>Schools in the US are now buying more Chromebooks than all other devices
combined

That probably won't last once news of the 5 year EOL policy gets around.

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bitmapbrother
And what exactly is going to replace it?

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Dell Inspiron 11 3000 @ approx $150/unit with no OS (Windows later). Which is
pretty competitive to most 11" Chromebooks which come in at $150/unit with
Chrome OS.

Obviously that "No OS" part is a gotcha, but School Districts are practically
given Microsoft licenses for pennies on the dollar, so pushing an image of
Windows 10 Enterprise isn't exactly a big ask.

The biggest downside of Windows isn't the cost of the devices, it is the
staffing costs. With Chromebooks you may be able to spread one full time IT
support tech between three or four schools, with Windows it might be one
support tech for two schools, and they'll need to be shadowed by people
handling systems like AD/Exchange/et al.

I will say that in my limited experience larger school districts do very well
with a Windows solution, but smaller ones do better with Chromebooks. That's
because larger ones can absorb the cost of the AD/Exchange/server admin
easily, whereas for smaller ones you'll have to lose IT support tech staff to
go handle that (which hurts end users).

Microsoft has been trying to combat some of these limitations with
Azure/Office 365. They, again, give School Districts a huge discount and it
allows the school district to outsource some of their staffing needs to
Microsoft. Will it work? Time will tell.

I will add this: iPads have been an unmitigated disaster. Everyone rushed to
buy them and then had no idea what to do with them once they got them. No
money was spent on apps or lesson plans (that focused around an iPad), and
even for generic "research" carts they're very underwhelming.

Both Chromebooks and Windows (w/Office) do what students and teachers need:
Student email, student portal, research, typing, and spreadsheets.

Ever watch a student try to research something and type a report on that
subject using an iPad? It is damn painful, many just start writing the
information on paper, then writing up their report at the end, whereas a
Chromebook and Windows machine (and MacOS in fairness) are full on
multitasking.

Watch this video of someone multitasking on a Chromebook[0] and now an
iPad[1]. The iPad is a toy by comparison. I won't even insult anyone's
intelligence by linking to videos of Windows/MacOS, both are solid as a rock
for multitasking too (MacOS just isn't "realistic" for budgetary reasons).

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-AJasVMb1Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-AJasVMb1Y)
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jorwzOsPAYs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jorwzOsPAYs)

~~~
sunnyps
I don't think the main problem with Windows PCs is the cost of AD/Exchange/etc
although it's a big problem. IMO the main problem is that even well managed
Windows installs have a way of turning to shit (mine did recently). OTOH
ChromeOS is the exact opposite: unless you put your Chromebook into developer
mode you cannot muck with the OS at all. And even if you manage to somehow get
your device into a bad state, reinstalling from a factory image is easy. So
Windows might have more apps and be a more capable OS than ChromeOS but its
support costs are too high for it to viable.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Windows doesn't have those problems if it is well managed. The second you get
the wiff of a problem on a specific device, you just rebuild it from scratch
over the network using WDS to select which installation you want, hit go, and
walk away.

But as I said above, managing the services behind the scenes (inc. WDS and the
images) costs money and smaller school districts struggle to absorb that
overhead. I think all you've done is describe the same problem in a roundabout
way.

