For those who aren’t aware, the same strategy is used by a lot of tech companies.

Apple tries to get people invested in their ecosystem during early education by selling cheap laptops and iMacs to high schools. The idea is to make students familiar with macOS early on, so changing to something with a significantly different user experience (e.g. Windows) has a higher barrier of entry.

Microsoft does something similar, but using their Office software suite instead of operating system. Discount education licenses for Office and Office 365 to encourage schools to have their students use it and become accustomed to its user interface and way of doing things.

Adobe does it with Creative Cloud in post-secondary institutions to ensure that people entering into creative roles aren’t familiar with any of their competitors’ software.