Amplify’s hardware and software divisions may not be in sync

In a lengthy Bloomberg story about News Corp.’s Amplify, signs of problems are evident for Brooklyn’s largest tech company. In one part, the story describes a school district that bought iPads because the software the school district liked best wasn’t made for Android, even though Android tablets are the company’s big product.
Meanwhile, Amplify’s biggest client, a school district in North Carolina, which is leasing 17,000 Amplify tablets, isn’t using any of Amplify’s curriculum.
From Bloomberg:

Still, Greensboro isn’t using Amplify’s curriculum. It wasn’t ready when the tablets arrived in 2013. Amplify never tried to sell it there for this school year, according to Robin Britt, the district’s director of instructional technology.
“The left hand doesn’t necessarily talk to the right hand,” said Jocelyn Becoats, the district’s chief of curriculum. Becoats’s team has created its own curriculum that teachers can download to their Amplify tablets and then assign to students, she said. Hamilton said the district never put out a request for bids for a new curriculum.

In the story, the company’s chief, Joel Klein, said that edtech was always going to be a long-term bet.
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