Years ago, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) helped secure its niche in the personal computer world by targeting the classroom. Many people who learned on the Apple II are among its most loyal fans today.
Google is making huge inroads following the same path, as its Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Apps Education Edition has been adopted by more and more schools. It now claims that 5 million students are Googling in the classroom. If 5 million young people become accustomed to a gmail account, Google word processing, Google spreadsheets, the ability to create their own free websites, and to share video, this could lay the foundation for a lifetime of profits for the company.
It's hard to criticize schools for taking Google up on the offer. Google Apps are likely to be well received by parents and students who are familiar with other products of the company. It relieves school systems of the cost of IT support for PC-resident software and files, taps into Google's enormous storage capacity, provides sophisticated security, and takes advantage of its constant innovation and wide-ranging product line. And it's free for grades K-12 as well as higher education institutions (private universities, public ones, and other educational orgs).
It also provides Google a huge benefit, the ability to track the usage that young people make of it to infer tastes and preferences that can improve its ad sales business.
As we transition to a cloud computing environment, training students to use Google's tools in school is bound to give it a huge leg up over competitors such as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Zoho, a lead that could translate into a lot of business and profit.
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