Steve Jobs died for our sins. iPad in schools edition.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt examines the iPad's presence in US schools:

Apple has a virtual lock on the school tablet market. 100% of the schools represented (serving about 30,000 students) used iPads. 0% of respondents deployed Google (GOOG) Android tablets, although there must be a few Xooms or Galaxy Tabs out there. At the time of the survey, Amazon's (AMZN) Kindle Fire had been announced but not yet shipped.

A third of the schools represented expected to eventually deploy one tablet per child; one of them already did.

The chief hurdle to getting tablets into the schools, according to the IT folks, was not cost (20%) but "device management" (64%).

How much is the Steve Jobs up in heaven laughing at the fact that Apple is the prime beneficiary of that whole "device management" concern?

But I think this article brings up a larger point that is relevant not just in schools but in government and enterprise: what idiot would *not* choose the iPad?

That's not a fanboy question. Really. Yes, I believe iPad is superior to all other tablets. Yes, it's verifiable that the iPad ecosystem is superior to all other tablets. 

Only, think of it this way: you are the person in charge of buying, say, 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 tablets. They cost money. They require "device management" and necessitate a procurement effort and IP management and a means of tracking and some training and approved applications, etc. etc. etc.

What fool would *not* choose the iPad?

Not choosing the iPad *immediately* makes the person who makes such a decision -- or the team -- viewed as anywere between stupid or on the take by everyone else within that organization.

The iPad is the standard.

As I said, Jobs in up in heaven, listening to As Time Goes By, not because he's sad but because he's, you know, the melancholy sort, and smiling.