Microsoft to take over edu market.

Jayem

Jayem

The All Seeing
Today I saw a story on techtv ( http://www.techtv.com ) that Microsoft annouced some sort of program to flush out all of their old software into the old computer that schools have, at insanelly low rates. The reporter said that this would not only boost M$'s stock but also build more of a relationship with the schools. The education market is THE ONLY one that Apple still has somewhat of a firm grip on. Although living on LI and just graduating HS last year, I havent seen a mac lab in over 8 years... go figure...
Anyone have ne incite on to what M$ plans to do with their new tactics?
:eek:
 
I thought it was just a proposition MS made as a settlement for the case that's going forever.

they 'donate' whatever to ghetto schools. the schools can choose how they allocate the resources, but of course, if you choose MS, you get more stuffs... so basically, if you don't choose MS, you're making unwise economical choise, I guess.

I guess it's not gonna hurt MS, and maybe (probably) help MS increase their market share in education...

I read that the proposed amount of donation probably isn't enough to really help the schools, but they (states or whatever, I'm not keeping track anymore) might go along with the stupid proposition, because then they get something now, instead of dragging the thing forever, which results in...pretty much nothing.

Maybe Tobacco companies should've proposed to donate smokes to people in ghetto who are old enough to smoke, but can't afford to.
 
Well, if it does happen, at least try and be an optimist. Now you can have someone to blame when half of the US's kids fail.

It's not family issues or bad teaching, it's microsoft!:D
 
I disagree, Apple does not have a firm hold of the Education market, in fact they've lost the education market. If you want to talk to the man who is currently controlling the Edu market, I suggest you seek out Michael Dell. Unfortunately, Apple has slipped big time when it comes to Edu. They are making a resurgence of late, but they by no means have a strong hold or even a majority any longer is schools. And because Dell has taken the lead, I'd say they've brought Microsoft right along with them. I can only speak for the Los Angeles area schools, but it used to be like a 90:10 ratio or Macs to PCs back in the late 80's and early 90's, but since 96 to the presence, I wouldn't be surprised if it's 30:70 now. I work at UCLA, but have been in touch with many IT guys and gals all over L.A., and that is the consensus. Now OSX will definitely light a fire under us though. As it is here at UCLA, there are many Unix/Linux labs, and I think we'll see a good portion of those converted to OSX labs, I know that I'm currently planning to convert a Unix lab and another Linux lab over to OSX. Anyway, just thought I'd chime in. I too think that Microsoft should have at least agreed to purchase Mac hardware and supplied Office v.X on them. That way, they're fostering comptetion, but still allowing access to at least one of their own products.....
 
If they get rid of the macs in our computer labs I will make petitions! This is just plain stupid, making stuff M$ only is a way to further the stupid monopoly that we are already bitching about! People lack the cognitive ability TO THINK these days! :mad:
 
Well, Apple may own 60% of the education market on the WORLD...
But in Germany, I've never seen any Macs in schools yet.
:(
 
"Around half of the computers in education today are Apple computers, and we're the second largest supplier overall and the largest supplier of portable computers to education," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement released Tuesday.


Now if Stevie is saying "around half" my guess is that number is actually under 50%, otherwise he would have said "OVER HALF"

Also, note that Apple is the second largest supplier. Who's that larger supplier? I think you know.

I'm not being pessimistic, I'm being realistic. Apple f@cked up when it dissregarded the education market. Its making inroads, but has some serious work to do. Right now, schools have very little money. The educators may want to use Apple, but the accountant says: "we can get 3 PeeCee's for the price of ONE mac". Of course the accountant doesn't care about the cost of supporting/networking/maintaining all of those peecee's, because thats on a different budget. Apple needs to be selling a lower end iMac/iBooks to schools. $499 iMac, $899 iBook.

FaRuvius
 
Yeah!! And if more schools had Macs to work with, it would also increase Apples market share as most people would recognize, that using a Mac is much more fun than working with a pc box.
Microsoft would dissapear from market, and Apple could finally take over the world, saving humanity from the evil M$ wintel boxes! :cool:
 
At RIT's college of imaging arts and sciences- there are at least 11 labs filled with Apple machinery. There is -1- NT lab in the BASEMENT with some CAD STUFF and a PLOTTER. I couldn't see us EVER dropping apple- but then we're a design school. The college of science just filled a lab chock full of brand new G4's to support their students. The IT dept. keeps its lab's running 1/2 and 1/2- some midrange Dell machines, some B+W G3's, and some new G4's. (the mac's comprise a little over 1/2).
The only schools who don't have mac labs are the CompSci labs- which are primarily Sun workstations, and the College of Business- whose sysadmin is- shall we say- interesting (like 'may you live in interesting times interesting'.

So- at least at my school there's an extremely strong presence. Our bookstore is even an authorized apple reseller.
 
My school has one mac for every 3 PCs. I will be shocked if this ratio continues and if we have any macs at all soon.

The reason is that no one uses the Macs. Even for things like web browsing they'll look at all the PCs in use and just walk away instead of trying the Mac.

This fear of the Mac is fostered by the fact that all the software we have on the Macs that work is IE and Netscape. We use Groupwise but the Mac version doesn't work and I think it's not even on the machines anymore.

Both sets of computers are ancient. The PCs are PIIs, and the Macs are iMacs with the metal shielding around the CRT. Not sure how old that is, but it's OLD. The fact that the iMacs run so stinking slowly doesn't help matters any. I'm sure that when the IT department looks into fixing up the computers they'll look into upgrading the PCs... almost impossible to upgrade iMacs.

Those of us who prefer Macs own them, and just bring Powerbooks or iBooks to school. If my school decides to ditch Mac next time they purchase computers it will be a hard sell to convince them to buy Macs that no one uses.

All of this is ironic since medicine and biomedical research are highly populated with Mac users for whatever reason. If I look in the labs on campus I'd say that at least half the computers are Macs.
 
microsoft might take over the elementry/middleschool/highschool labs, but all colleges and design schools especially will always have macs!
 
half of them are mac ?
you guys are damn lucky....I think our computer labs are like 1/3 macs.... the guys who run the computer labs are windows-jugheads and they foster the idea of Mac-agnostic-behavior....

furthermore our "learning center" people (where staff and faculty of my universoty can get free training on new technologies) are so out of touch with the macs that they think they need a WHOLE day to set up a mac from the point it gets out of the box till it gets the smiley mac on the bootup screen! What a bunch of idiots, and this is their reason they want to put PCs in :mad: ... (or they might just be lazy and do one machine a day and slack off...maybe its a combo)...bottom line, they suck!


Admiral
 
Easy Admiral, I'm a computer lab guy in a learning center! But I'm the exception to your rule I guess. I'm the type that can appreciate something about everything, hey I've still got a VAX running VMS still alive!!! I can understand your frustration though, we've got a few people who have been indoctrinated by the Redmond virus. The true geeks appreciate the finer things in computing life though, and I hope we can keep the Mac alive and well in academia....

Take it easy...
 
Easy Admiral, I'm a computer lab guy in a learning center! But I'm the exception to your rule I guess. I'm the type that can appreciate something about everything, hey I've still got a VAX running VMS still alive!!! I can understand your frustration though, we've got a few people who have been indoctrinated by the Redmond virus. The true geeks appreciate the finer things in computing life though, and I hope we can keep the Mac alive and well in academia....

Take it easy...
 
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