The last time I had to use Microsoft Word was elementary school. Weâd type up our âessaysâ in Word, then save them onto a flash drive to keep working at home. Those were the days when â8GB flash driveâ was included on my school supplies list at the beginning of the year.
But very quickly, Google Drive took over. By middle school, every student in the district was using Docs instead of Word, Slides instead of Powerpoint, and Sheets instead of Excel. And thatâs how itâs stayed.
Somehow, Google managed to win the upcoming generation (at least in the U.S., in upper middle class school districts). They pushed really hard to get school districts signed up with Google Drive accounts for every student, and made solid features for IT departments to manage entire districts remotely.
They sold huge fleets of Chromebooks to school districts, and districts used them to replace their more-expensive MacBook Airs or less-capable iPads. And once a school is running on Chromebooks, Google has their tendrils deep in the schoolâs IT setup â everything can run through Google, Chrome OS (the software that Chromebooks run), and Google Drive.
This is an extraordinarily smart move. Google started with schools because itâs the way to win a decade later. From what I see, it seems like all the high schoolers and college students I know strongly prefer Google Docs and Slides. Nobody knows how to work the Microsoft equivalents â weâve never had to.
But the argument weâve heard again and again is that the real world uses Microsoft products. That when you get a job, youâll need to learn the Microsoft products.
And that might very well be true. But the world is malleable, and soon the generation that Google nurtured will move into the real world. Googleâs suite has much better collaboration and seems more intuitive, so as Microsoftâs historical advantage fades, so will Microsoftâs tools fade in importance.
Google planted their seeds a decade ago, and soon itâll be time to harvest.