Can Microsoft challenge the iPad in education and enterprise?
Can Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 tablet challenge Apple's products? (Part 5 of 5)
Apple dominates the U.S. education tablet market despite a declining share in the global tablet market
Recently, Microsoft (MSFT) teamed up with CDI college, which is a Canadian career training institute, to supply more than 5,800 Surface 2 tablets to its students. However, according to Apple (AAPL), citing a report from IDC, the iPad has an over 95% share of the U.S. education tablet market. Although Apple’s share in the global tablet market has declined from about 40% in Q1 2013 to 33% in Q1 2014 due to the emergence of Google’s (GOOG) Android-based tablets, Apple dominates the U.S. education tablet market. As the graph below shows, Samsung (SSNLF) and Lenovo (LNVGY) have gained share while Apple and Amazon (AMZN) have lost share in the global tablet market.
Why CDI college chose Surface 2 tablets for its students
According to Bohdan Bilan, vice president of academics and regulatory affairs at CDI College, “ The experience students receive with the enterprise-quality technology of the Surface devices and Microsoft productivity tools help us achieve our goal of preparing them with the skills and experiences they need to succeed in their career now and 20 years from now. We need to provide students with the tools they will use when they graduate and the skills that will translate in the future as technology continues to evolve, so the Surface 2 and Microsoft software was perfect for us.”
Can Microsoft penetrate the education and enterprise tablet market?
The CDI college win is just the start for Microsoft to capture a bigger share in the education tablet market. Alongside educational institutes, Microsoft can also capture a bigger share of the enterprise tablet market. This is because enterprises have traditionally used Microsoft’s productivity tools for PCs, such as Microsoft Office for professional work, and so can follow this tradition through Microsoft’s tablets. The same argument applies for educational institutes.
However, according to Apple, in the enterprise market, 98% of the Fortune 500 are using the iPad. And according to Good Technology, 91% of the activation of tablets in enterprise were iPads. So it wouldn’t be easy for Microsoft to take over the iPad’s dominance in the education and enterprise markets.
To learn more about important upcoming tech releases, check out the Market Realist series Apple is expected to introduce some attractive features in the iPhone 6.
Browse this series on Market Realist:
