Switching from Microsoft to Google

[Primus]

As someone who has been through the journey that is at the centre of what the OP asked about and has come out of the other side, could you summarise the good and the bad. From the thread so far, it appears to me to be

 

i) Licensing costs - much the same

ii) Administration in Google far easier

 

Licensing costs are much much less - at the start we were paying MS over £25k per year in licences and Google about £8900.

 

I believe Google Workspace is vastly superior to M365 in terms of functionality and usability for education. Like Roger I'm a teacher but also IT Director (and I'm technical too also like Roger!) - I've used and evaluated both Google and MS in the classroom and Google works far better with fewer barriers.

 

Equipment costs - Chromebooks are fantastic and so much cheaper than an equivalent Windows device in terms of purchase price and cost of ownership. Chrome OS Flex opens up so many opportunities.

 

Administration - once a Chrome OS device has been issued we rarely see it other than if there has been some damage to it. We can run with a relatively small team across the Trust because of this. We would have to double our staffing if we wanted to use more Windows devices and M365 and our budgets would need to increase massively.

[ThatBoringBloke]

Just going to chip in here with my bit...

 

We are a Google school.

We still run onsite MS AD.

All Staff use Windows PC's in their classrooms. Some staff have Windows Laptops.

We have 850 students and one Windows IT suite.

We currently have around 300 Chromebooks onsite (plus 80 offsite).

Most of the issues I have are with our Windows ecosystem.

I almost only see the Chromebooks when they have been damaged.

I am a team of one.