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Futuresource Consulting has released their annual report on mobile PCs in the education sector, noted as K-12 here in the United States.  Overall, shipments grew 18% in 2016 over the previous year with Chrome OS taking 58% of the market share in the sector.  That marks an 8% increase from 2015 and further establishes its stronghold in the sector.

The strong combination of affordable devices, productivity tools via G-Suite, easy integration with third party platforms/tools, task management/distribution via Google Classroom and easy device management remains extremely popular with US teachers and IT buyers alike. The rise of Chromebooks has also set new industry benchmarks with regards to average device pricing, with prices reaching as low as $120 on certain projects.

The report indicates that the brunt of the gains by Chrome OS were at the cost of Apple technologies.  MacOS in the education sector dropped 1% year-over-year while iOS took a 5% hit.  Microsoft Windows remained at 22% market share.

Google continues to show the love to Microsoft Exchange users with the latest update to Gmail.  The update is rolling out now and when you get it, you will be able to manage your tasks setup in your Exchange account through the app.  No longer do you have to depend on another app (like Outlook for Android) or your desktop client to manage them.

Google has supported Exchange accounts in Gmail on Nexus devices going back to the Nexus 5 but it wasn’t until mid-year last year that they opened this feature up to non-Nexus devices.  Since then, Google has been tweaking improvements into the app for Exchange but no major feature changes have happened until today.

Today’s Deal over at Amazon is on the solid performing BLU VIVO 5R phone from BLU.  This 5.5″ phone with 3GB of RM and 32GB of storage is down to $179 if you pick it up in black and grey.  While BLU has always been known for their budget friendly phones, over the past year the company has made great strides in the quality and performance that you get for that budget price.  The VIVO 5R is a great example of this fact.

The phone comes with a 5.5″ Full HD curved glass display that gives you an eye appealing ~401ppi.  It is powered by the MediaTek 6753 octa-core processor running at 1.3GHz and is coupled with 32GB of internal storage and 3GB of RAM.  That storage can be expanded up to an additional 64GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.  Powering all of this is a 3150mAh battery which should keep you going all day.  The phone ships with Android Marshmallow but it is expected that BLU will update it to Nougat at some point – but when or if is unclear.

Most certainly file this one under finally!  Microsoft has announced that support for Google Calendar and Google Contacts is finally coming to Outlook for Mac.  For those on Windows 10 using Outlook for Windows, this is no big deal.  The support for integrating your Google Calendar into Outlook has been there pretty much from the beginning.  Not the case for Mac users.  While adding your Gmail account to Outlook for Mac was no biggie, your calendar and contacts from Google would not sync.  It just wasn’t an option.

In an announcement to the Office Insiders, Microsoft has started rolling out the support for Google Calendar and Contacts to those in the Insider Fast Ring.  The feature is certainly still in the test phase, so much so that Microsoft isn’t rolling it out to everyone who is an Insider.  Those who don’t get it immediately will be prompted at some point in the future to add their Google account so they can start testing.