Will Acer be the post-PC era's first casualty?

UPDATE: - Acer have refuted the claim below in this official response.  ARN also dismisses the original article, and we've been contacted directly by an Acer BDM with a similar objection  We've received some assurance that Acer will still support education customers (see comments section, below), although to what level and whether it includes all customers in all regions remains unclear (if unsure, you should contact your local Acer person).

According to Channel News, Acer Australia has taken a serious hit from the recent decline in PC sales, and are reacting by scaling back their Australian operations, sacking staff, stopping manufacturing and ending field-service operations after seeing an almost 40% loss in sales.

This puts things in an interesting context for us as a school.  Have we just dodged a bullet?  The Acer w510 was one of a shortlist of devices in contention for our 1:1 computing program.  It only missed out by a narrow margin, but now that I hear quotes like these, some of which were sourced from Acer employees, I think I should be happy the Acer just missed out:

"Acer Australia will cease production of PC's for schools"

"The intent is to wind down all field service operations and move to a return to base warranty model across the board"

This reminds me of another recent disaster that befell a number of Australian schools when Optima went out of business.  While not that same level of disaster, this still doesn't look good for those relying on onsite service contracts.

Of course, Acer will still be able to service their equipment, albeit in a return-to-base manner, but it would seem they now intend to operate more like a Samsung, ASUS or Apple in future.  Leaving the Enterprise hardware supply to the big boys (Lenovo, Dell and HP).  Enterprise wont miss them, but I'm sure some schools and small businesses will.

Did Google just disrupt IT in the Classroom?

I think they did, and for $35 no less!

The recent announcement of the Google Chromecast creates some interesting possibilities for streaming content to TV's and projectors in classrooms.  Sure, I know what a lot of people are thinking - AppleTV can already do this.  But the difference here is that this is genuinely cross-platform, and not content dependent.  Unlike the AppleTV, you don't have to worry about whether the app you want to stream supports it.  Because it's relying on the Chrome browser to initiate the stream you're effectively locked in to web content, which is actually a good thing as far as I can see.  We know The Cloud is the future of education, so this helps accelerate that switch by encouraging teachers to think in a "cloud-first" way.  Let's also not forget that you can use this from any Windows, Mac, Android, Chrome OS or iOS device, so schools with multi-platform or BYOD environments should love it.

We know The Cloud is the future of education

The way the Chromecast works is limited, in that I assume you can't just broadcast everything that's happening on your screen like you can with something like MiraCast, but it bears the tradeoff that the Chromecast device is largely autonomous in the process, so once the stream is started the end-user stands less chance of interfering with it accidentally and they can continue using their device as normal.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/Tp9VA71eBew]

It's early days yet, so it's unclear if the little gadget works exactly as it appears, but at this point, who cares?  For $35 you can bet we'll be trying it out, and even if you only get half the expected functionality, at that price it's still great value!

... now all they need to do is release it outside the US!:

We Have Liftoff!

We're done!  I know there's still work to be done supporting the initiative, but our 1:1 program has been officially launched - and Houston, we don't have a problem.  The computers were distributed to students and parents at a series of presentations given last week and early this week.

The turnout was great, and the reaction of both parents and students was similarly great.  Our little Windows 8 based Envy x2's impressed both them and us.  They have an appealing aesthetic and a sturdy quality about them, both of which parents like to see.

Our presentation to parents was a mix of playing hardball with the "care and use" message whilst trying to convey some excitement about the program.  We used a bit of video in our presentation.  My favourite was this ad for Windows 8 (see below), which uses a young boy, very close to the age of our students to show that Windows 8 is easy to use (which it is, given the right device):

[youtube=http://youtu.be/ckEGxTeEOtE]

Our presentation content was reasonably good, and our delivery improved with each one.  We learned a few things about what's important to parents, so next time around we should be able to refine and improve the process, and the program itself.

Windows 8 Apps for Education

With our new Windows 8 tablet program about to debut, I thought I'd post some resources.  The app environment for Windows 8 (through the Windows Store) has got off to a good start with a lot of new software available in the store.  There are about 100,000 apps available at the time of writing, according to metrostorescanner.com. So here are a few lists of apps relevant to education:

• Microsoft Australia, Education Blog, Windows 8 Education Apps


• Microsoft Australia again, with another list of Education Apps


• Babbel's Language Learning Apps


• Another short list from Microsoft, this time from MSDN


• A list of apps produced by the people at "teachnology"


• A list from app indexing site, Applooker


• The full list of (currently) 14,000 education apps on Metroscanner

That'll do for now.  There are more apps being added every day, I'll update with more lists as I find them.