Comments on: Apple tries to recover in the classroom

Though dropped from a school program in Virginia, Apple lines up a deal to sell as many as 63,000 iBook computers to a Georgia school district.

[technewsjunkie]

I heard the Superintendent overruled the board

I heard the Superintendent overruled the board's decision to go
with Macs, and hopefully, Tiger;-)

Does anybody know if this is true?

The reasons sited smell of bias.

[catchall]

The only bias I see is yours

'The reasons sited smell' like they did their jobs, and got the best deal for their school district.
Schools are not there to evangelize any operating system. They are there to teach, and computers ( with any OS ) are tools to be used to that end. Which ever vendor offers the best price/feature package should be used. It seems Dell came out ahead in this one. Apple will lower its prices for the next, and everyone wins

[201293546946733175101343322673]

Yeah, keep TRYING, Apple

Oh please, why would kids or teens want to use Mac in the school when most families have PCs anyway? Apple simply don't get it :)

Software may be an issue

My Child's school has Apple computers that they can't use because all of the software that the school has is for PC's. Apple needs to address the software issue, because computers with no software are only useful for surfing the web.

If the PC software can run on the Mac's, Apple has done a poor job of showing how to run those software packages on Mac's because our child's school is considering getting PC's to replace the Mac's.

[jmmejzz]

Far Cheaper

Rather then replacing hardware, it would make far more sense
for your school to be replacing software. Why do they have
Windows software but Apple hardware?

Smooth move

PC software does not run on MAC, talk about somebody not doing their homework.

[James Wojciehowski]

Essential Software works fine

Student software such as MS Word and Excel work just fine on
Macs if you choose not to use the free AppleWorks equivalents.

If the school chooses to use PC unique applications (especially
for school admin) that is just a dumb choice given they already
have Macs.

I support a school with 84 Macs and 10 Dell PCs.
1 - the Dells take much more of my time than the Macs due to
the never-ending viruse protection issues and teachers
downloading unauthorized software.
2 - every critical application has Mac and PC equivalents that can
exchange files.
3 - the average age of the Macs is 9 years, the Dells are 2 years
old. The Dells are falling apart, the Macs have stood up to even
the Kindergarten and 1st graders.

Take the Mac route.