Is the education market part of Apple's past?

beige_g3 · June 22, 2004 11:43AM

At one time Macs were "the education computer". Today, PCs are taking over the educaton market http://www.notebookreview.com/default.aspx?newsID=1910 and Apple seems to be moving on to bigger and better things http://news.com.com/Apple+sells+supe...tag=macintouch

Has Apple for the most part let this market go?

ipodandimac · June 22, 2004 12:18PM

if anything, apple is gaining a larger edu market. you'd be surprised at how many people want or have powerbooks (or ibooks).

applenut · June 22, 2004 12:38PM

http://www.readingeagle.com/re/news/1277660.asp

splinemodel · June 22, 2004 12:39PM

Right now Macs cost a good bit more up front, and it's not like PC's are damn near unusable anymore, the way they once were. Granted, a network of PCs always manages to incur an extremely high service cost, but it's very easy to overlook that.

beige_g3 · June 22, 2004 12:52PM

I am not being critical of the Mac. I am just wondering if education is in their long term plans ?

a_greer · June 22, 2004 1:01PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Splinemodel

Right now Macs cost a good bit more up front, and it's not like PC's are damn near unusable anymore, the way they once were. Granted, a network of PCs always manages to incur an extremely high service cost, but it's very easy to overlook that.

yea, it is like people who say "I cant afford a better car", they are shocked and amazed when you point out the fact that with all of the money they put into fixing the crap bucket, they coulda had a nice car to start with.

a_greer · June 22, 2004 1:10PM

I realy wonder about the upgrade freguency of the computers now in schools, the local schools got all new 1.8ghz P4s with 60 gig hdds and 256 megs of ram 2 years ago and now they are upgradeing again! yep, 3300 shiney new dells,and for what?

I could see this kind of update schedule in the cad class rooms or the video/computer graphics classes, but in the school here that is only two classrooms!

just for the record, in the libarary at said local HS before I graduated last month, I discovered to my surprise, that the three remaining then-banished-to-the-corner iMac rev a's could do anything the much newer and faster PCs could do. - even on os8.6

applenut · June 24, 2004 2:22AM

Quote:

Originally posted by a_greer

I realy wonder about the upgrade freguency of the computers now in schools, the local schools got all new 1.8ghz P4s with 60 gig hdds and 256 megs of ram 2 years ago and now they are upgradeing again! yep, 3300 shiney new dells,and for what?

I could see this kind of update schedule in the cad class rooms or the video/computer graphics classes, but in the school here that is only two classrooms!

just for the record, in the libarary at said local HS before I graduated last month, I discovered to my surprise, that the three remaining then-banished-to-the-corner iMac rev a's could do anything the much newer and faster PCs could do. - even on os8.6

schools in NY get a tech budget every year that they must spend or it goes to waste. this usually results in a frenzy the day before the deadline and the purchase of a ton of crap they'll never use or have no need for or is excess.

progmac · June 24, 2004 9:05AM

here at UC (univ of cincinnati), the whole Architecture, Interior Design, and Fine Art departments switched to requiring students to purchase Macs. The school I am in (Design architecture art and planning) is probably about 75% Mac.

At ohio university, where i did my undergrad, there was like one mac on the entire campus. that sucked.

the general · June 24, 2004 9:59AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Beige_G3

I am not being critical of the Mac. I am just wondering if education is in their long term plans ?

well according to apple, they are more on the one on one with schools, and doing more with ibooks for each student instead of just selling a bunch of desktops cheaply to the schools.

placebo · June 24, 2004 10:40AM

I seriously think that OS9 is marring the education market. Schools have iMacs running 9, and when it comes time to buy new computers, they don't even bother looking at Macs, because all they remember are Rev. A iMacs.

quagmire · June 24, 2004 4:07PM

My old middle school is switching to pcs. They had a mix of imacs from rev a to the to the very last rev before the redesign to the flat panel imac. They also had Powermac G3, aio G3, a classic mac, and 2-4 emacs. I would think in the future they could go back to Mac because of the hassle of maintaining pcs but, I never know.

concord · June 24, 2004 9:13PM

Wow... I never realized Dell had that kind of marketshare in EDU sales. I knew it was good, but just about 1/2!?!

I remember just *4* years ago when Apple had twice the marketshare of it's nearest competitor in education sales. Damn, that's just sad.

C.

aquatic · June 24, 2004 10:29PM

Yeah. Dartmouth just wholesale dumped Apple in the last few years. Right when OS X came out too, jeez! It seems to me Apple's doing a bit better with students, a LOT worse with institutions. Dartmouth, as far as offices go, just went from mostly Mac to absolutely no Mac. Real sad. The way Dart was set up was beautiful. I hope and think they'll come back some day. But Apple needs to work on their Edu. Whatever they're doing, isn't enough.

ionyz · June 24, 2004 10:43PM

In my current field I get to interact with bother teachers and technical directors throughout the county. There seems to be less using Macs then there was 5-10 years ago. Although I'm glad a few bring PowerBooks to meetings and ask that golden question "Will that support Mac" during technology seminars.

Is the education market part of Apple's past?

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