In my experience (4 years in ed orgs with 15-5,000 employees), chromebooks dramatically changed the ed market. Instead of $1000+/unit, you can buy chromebooks a

In my experience (4 years in ed orgs with 15-5,000 employees), chromebooks dramatically changed the ed market. Instead of $1000+/unit, you can buy chromebooks and their support infrastructure (9-5 support, networking, charging) for about $350/unit. For a fair number of schools, that allowed them to transition from a few roaming computer labs (carts of laptops) to a cart of chromebooks for every room. They also came along as there was a significant political and financial push for more access to technology in classrooms. This is abundantly apparent in the bay area, but it happened along both coasts and in most cities. I think that "long-term preferences tend to be established" mantra is defensible in light of this, absent large market changes people tend to stick to what they're doing. The chromebook was a major market change for the ed space.