According to AndroidCentral, Microsoft has rolled out the full Android Office suite to ChromeOS. In doing so, Microsoft is bringing its popular, market leading, productivity suite to Google’s platform. This makes Chromebooks wholly more versatile and it is hard to see how Microsoft is not just doing Google a huge favor. ChromeOS may fall short of the functionality of Windows, but it has been hugely successful with education customers. A potent mix of affordable Chromebook hardware and ease of use have helped ChromeOS. The platform held a 58% share of K-12 students in the United States in 2016. It has been an upward trend for Google as its platform became dominant. However, it always lacked Microsoft Office. While people are switching to ChromeOS, Office is still the go-to productivity suite. By launching the Android apps on Chromebooks, customers will now be able to access popular services such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Of course, this not the full desktop experience you would get on a Windows machine. We guess that is Microsoft’s play. The company is appealing to customers across platforms, but saying if you want Office in all its glory you will need to buy a Windows machine.
Microsoft Embracing Education
Microsoft is now fully backing a push in the education market with the launch of Windows 10 S. This is an education focused version of the platform. It differentiates itself from ChromeOS by allowing users to access full apps from the Microsoft Store. Chromebooks are limited by their need to always be connected. Let us know in the comments. Do you think Microsoft is right to cover its cross-platform bases, or is this helping Google solve a problem?
