Chromebook reseller lands huge NSW schools deal

Reseller PCS Australia has landed a major deal as the exclusive supplier of Chromebooks to the Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta.

The contract opens up around 80 schools to the reseller, which is run by industry personality Syd Borg and based in the Sydney suburb of Granville.

The deal means PCSA can supply the diocese with two models of Chromebooks, an Acer and a Samsung.

Borg estimated the deal was worth up to $2 million per year and could cover anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 Chromebooks per annum, along with Google Apps.

He told CRN that the move to Chromebooks could have "major implications on Microsoft".

"Due to low costs, the Google Chromebook with Google Apps is becoming a very economical product compared with Microsoft," said Borg.

"The [Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta] is migrating everything over to Google. That means email, the students' documents, all the work they are doing, including social media, will be on the Google cloud."

Borg added that Google was "over the moon" about the deal.

"It has taken the best part of 10 months to put this together. It has been a long, long process of evaluation.

"One of the clear features was battery life. They wanted products that could operate all day without needing to be plugged into the power point," he added.

Borg said both the Acer and Samsung offer eight to 10 hours of battery life.

PCSA's relationship with the Parramatta diocese goes back almost 20 years; the reseller started supplying schools with NEC equipment in 1994, Borg said.

He added that the diocese also has device deals in place for Apple and Lenovo.

The Catholic Diocese of Parramatta spans 78 Catholic schools with a total of more than 43,000 students.