Apple Offering Discounted iPad 10-Packs to Educational Institutions

Really nice for the schools.

Only $20 savings for each iPad, when you buy 10. That is no better than the education discount on iMacs, when you buy them 1 at a time.

pmpknetr21 said:

Really nice for the schools.

Click to expand...

I disagree, very very small discount

Apple should have extended the full education discount of 14% to students. As much as I love Apple's products, they're very much an overly greedy company these days. They're also possibly being myopic, as students are highly likely to buy content for the device IMO

Very shameful Apple

j_maddison said:

I disagree, very very small discount

Apple should have extended the full education discount of 14% to students. As much as I love Apple's products, they're very much an overly greedy company these days. They're also possibly being myopic, as students are highly likely to buy content for the device IMO

Very shameful Apple

Click to expand...

wtf?

4 years ago my brother (parents) had to pay $2000 for his "tablet PC" from HP in highschool.

This works out to what, $470 a piece? Give me a break.

pmz said:

wtf?

4 years ago my brother (parents) had to pay $2000 for his "tablet PC" from HP in highschool.

This works out to what, $470 a piece? Give me a break.

Click to expand...

The iPad is not a tablet PC. You can still pay $2,000 for a tablet PC if you want. The iPad is a tablet yes, but it doesn't run a full blown deskptop OS (I'm not getting into that argument).

My point is, Apple used to offer excellent discounts to students and teachers across all of it's product ranges. It's a shame they're not offering the same with the iPad.

what kind of school would need the ipad over a mac or pc?

Jett0516 said:

what kind of school would need the ipad over a mac or pc?

Click to expand...

It's a companion device

Personally I would have found it very handy during my studying years, purely due to the form factor and diary/ notepad functions.

I was as disappointed as most people when it was released, I'm still disappointed in it as a home device, but for work I can see it being very handy. I don't need to multi task in work, but it would just sit there gathering dust in the house, for me at least anyway

pmz said:

wtf?

4 years ago my brother (parents) had to pay $2000 for his "tablet PC" from HP in highschool.

This works out to what, $470 a piece? Give me a break.

Click to expand...

4 years ago is completely irrelevant in the tech world.

The comparison that is valid is iPad-with-discount to iPad-without-discount. The discount is 4% on the $499 model and less on others. That's pretty small.

$20 discount? BFD!

That doesn't impress anybody, much less educators.

For buying 10, the discount should be $100 per unit. Buy 100, $125 off per unit.

Why businesses need to often discount in the first place?

pmz said:

wtf? 4 years ago my brother (parents) had to pay $2000 for his "tablet PC" from HP in highschool. This works out to what, $470 a piece? Give me a break.

Click to expand...

Just take off a zero; $479 apiece. Not ... that ... hard.

minik said:

Why businesses need to often discount in the first place?

Click to expand...

The education sector is a large reason apple still exists in the first place. A discount isn't much to ask.

Tiny discounts like that are why people will buy from places like Amazon since even if the price is identical they save much more on the sales tax.

j_maddison said:

It's a companion device

Personally I would have found it very handy during my studying years, purely due to the form factor and diary/ notepad functions.

Click to expand...

Not to mention textbooks! If could have all my textbooks and journal articles collated on one device where I could easily read them reclined and at my leisure I would be incredibly grateful! Not to mention the device's usefulness as a presenting tool, much nicer than lugging a laptop around.

For any individual in academia I would imagine those would be three huge selling points.

I miss the days when I could order an 8 pack of eMacs for our school for $4995. That comes out to less than $625 each. Now the cheapest computer I can get from Apple is $899 for the 20" iMac, (maybe $825 if I buy 25 or so and sweet talk my account rep). That's like a $5000-7000 difference for a lab of 25. Not small peanuts by any means when it comes to school budgets.

This $20 discount is a kick in the nuts from Apple. They'll still charge us 29 bucks for each stupid dongle and make that right back. (cue Clark Griswold rant)

But this discount is not directly to students. It is for institutional purchase I think. Did anyone get this discount through their school?

We haven't seen what Amazon's prices are for the iPad but I bet after a few weeks when demand dies down a bit, we are going to see $20 bucks off the sales price if not a bit more.

So how is it that Apple can only give the education sector a $20 discount per device when Amazon can buy this device from Apple (who is making a profit), resell it to consumers, AND STILL MAKE A PROFIT?

I'm not sure if Apple is being entirely greedy though and these things are rarely as simple as people try to make them out to be. For one, I bet there are concern's related to their resellers. If Apple sells them with too large of a discount, their resellers will have a hard time competing displeasing their resellers. I bet there are more things to consider than I am even aware of though.

As far as I know, there aren't many electronics manufacturers that even offer education discounts, so it's difficult to hang Apple for not giving bigger discounts.

Everyone seems so shocked by the minor discount they don't stop to think a little broader...

....this probably means Apple is already pricing these exceptionally low and can't discount them any more than that.

Further I seem to recall the iPhone and iTouch weren't available for volume or educational purchasing for quite some time... I know they weren't available through bussiness accounts for a quite some time.

The other thing this suggests is that there won't be a $100 price drop in 3-6 months like there was on the iPhone... if they were to be able to drop the pricing that much in the near future they'd offer education a bigger discount now.

Finally for those that don't see why these would be a boon for universities... most students going into university already have laptop, they don't really want to buy new laptops through their university. Requiring all incoming students but a $500 iPad is a lot more palatable than requiring they all by $2000 laptops. Having the entire student body standardized on one platform is huge for teachers and authors.

This $20 discount is a kick in the nuts from Apple.

Click to expand...

It's in line with their CPP published prices for their computers, which see only modest $20-30 discounts over the education retail pricing for the 5- and 10-packs.

Since the iPad education retail price is $499 and the package price already down $20 to $479, it would be unusual for the pack to be discounted more than the iMacs and MacBooks. Honestly it's a bit of a surprise that they have the same package discount as the 13" MacBook Pro on the iPad. When you consider that they're already getting education pricing and tax exemptions, plus other perks and extras from their package purchase, it's not such a bad deal.

MVApple said:

So how is it that Apple can only give the education sector a $20 discount per device when Amazon can buy this device from Apple (who is making a profit), resell it to consumers, AND STILL MAKE A PROFIT?

Click to expand...

Profit might be an overstatement. It's my understanding that most resellers don't get more than a 10% discount over retail price from Apple, and Amazon is a master of the loss leader. It often sells iPods and other popular items at near-break-even to attract other sales. It famously sells its eBooks at a loss.

As far as I know, there aren't many electronics manufacturers that even offer education discounts, so it's difficult to hang Apple for not giving bigger discounts.

Click to expand...

Most offer some form of institutional purchase discounts.

jb510 said:

Everyone seems so shocked by the minor discount they don't stop to think a little broader...

....this probably means Apple is already pricing these exceptionally low and can't discount them any more than that.

Further I seem to recall the iPhone and iTouch weren't available for volume or educational purchasing for quite some time... I know they weren't available through bussiness accounts for a quite some time.

The other thing this suggests is that there won't be a $100 price drop in 3-6 months like there was on the iPhone... if they were to be able to drop the pricing that much in the near future they'd offer education a bigger discount now.

Finally for those that don't see why these would be a boon for universities... most students going into university already have laptop, they don't really want to buy new laptops through their university. Requiring all incoming students but a $500 iPad is a lot more palatable than requiring they all by $2000 laptops. Having the entire student body standardized on one platform is huge for teachers and authors.

Click to expand...

What drugs are you taking? Have you been to university? How is a student supposed to do a dissertation on a glorified iPhone? I'm doing an MSc and I need stats software, a pdf viewer and word running concurrently. As for the $2k laptop? Try $999 for a MB (less with a student discount)

I don't have a huge problem with apple offering these to schools but the price is far too steep. If they do somehow manage to crowbar their iPads into schools they'll be indoctrinating the younger generation into apple computing whilst still shifting units for a hefty mark-up. Good work apple, but you should twist the knife a little more and make the schools pay for the shipping.

j_maddison said:

The iPad is not a tablet PC. You can still pay $2,000 for a tablet PC if you want. The iPad is a tablet yes, but it doesn't run a full blown deskptop OS (I'm not getting into that argument).

My point is, Apple used to offer excellent discounts to students and teachers across all of it's product ranges. It's a shame they're not offering the same with the iPad.

Click to expand...

Who cares??? its a $500 device that can replace all computer needs of any student. Period.

I'm tired of hearing this backwater lack of imagination. Every student should have an iPad, and the great news is that most can afford one, even without "discounts".

Anyone ever consider that Apple isn't offering much of discount right now, but will at a later date, probably during back-to-school season a.k.a. once supply is high enough and demand has slowed.

Thinking more than 4 feet ahead is always good.

pmz said:

Who cares??? its a $500 device that can replace all computer needs of any student. Period.

Click to expand...

HAHA!

Any student? No. Just No.

Please engage some sort of thought process before you make statements as ludicrous as this.

Not a problem.

So much whining, so little time.

About the only reason I'd care about anyone getting a discount is if I couldn't get the same discount myself.

Apple can charge what makes sense to them. As long as it's a decent business decision on their side, I have no gripe. If demand is high enough, they can get what they ask. If their institutional customers want to be "tossed a bone" to buy, then throw them a bone and make it up on volume.

Make some money Apple - and don't go broke in the process.

I like what Apple does enough to want Apple to stay healthy.

Nobody has to buy anything Apple sells if they don't want to. Nor can Apple make them.

Move on, people.

Very important

I'm not sure if many of us have grasped just how significant this product really is, and equally how important it is that it succeeds.

Yes, this is obviously the case for Apple. I would contend that they're betting a huge proportion of their reputation, and therefore Apple's future success, on the iPad's success.

But it's equally important for the rest of us. For decades MS has had a virtual monopoly in large areas of education sector. This hasn't been good for education and it surely hasn't been good for students.

Apple need to get it right. And pricing is a part of that. The deal is a part of that. But it will be the nature of the whole package that makes or breaks iPad. And in the case of education, it's the deals Apple signs with text book publishers that will make all the difference.

We buy iPods because the interface is great and buying music through iTunes is easy. [Yes, I know it's not the only way to get music on an iPod].

We buy iPhones because the interface is great and buying apps through the App Store is easy [Yes, I know you can jailbreak an iPhone], and getting on the net is easy.

We will buy iPads because the interface is great and buying books through iBookstore will be as easy as music and apps.

When Steve Jobs said "We're standing on the shoulders of Amazon’s Kindle..." he wasn't kidding.

In as many ways as the Kindle is revolutionary [the screen, the process of buying books etc], it is also equally crippled and retarded. The absence of colour makes it useless for text books. Books were printed with colour plates over 100 years ago. Imagine trying to study the use of colours in a artist's work, or studying anatomy... in B&W!

No, Apple have to drown the Kindle before Amazon perfect colour. It's a race in which Apple already have a head start, and a serious competitive edge, in the form of their OS and entire business model, which is much more diverse and competent and than Amazon's.

But we shouldn't ignore the other options:

15 years after Amazon revolutionized the way we buy books [and arguably saved reading books as an idea], in 2009 Barnes & Noble finally started to catch on and announced it is to Launch a Kindle Competitor... in Color! And Fujitsu is set to release its Flepia color e-book reader in Japan with a $1,000 price tag.

Whilst these are not competitors for the iPad in the real sense, they are indicators of how their market could be dinted, and where the technology might be going.

Apple's are not the only fruit, but the iPad is looking increasingly like the most credible education companion. We need to get beyond the package pricing and examine the real benefits of a ubiquitous Apple device in the education sector.

G58 said:

I'm not sure if many of us have grasped just how significant this product really is, and equally how important it is that it succeeds.

Yes, this is obviously the case for Apple. I would contend that they're betting a huge proportion of their reputation, and therefore Apple's future success, on the iPad's success.

But it's equally important for the rest of us. For decades MS has had a virtual monopoly in large areas of education sector. This hasn't been good for education and it surely hasn't been good for students.

Apple need to get it right. And pricing is a part of that. The deal is a part of that. But it will be the nature of the whole package that makes or breaks iPad. And in the case of education, it's the deals Apple signs with text book publishers that will make all the difference.

We buy iPods because the interface is great and buying music through iTunes is easy. [Yes, I know it's not the only way to get music on an iPod].

We buy iPhones because the interface is great and buying apps through the App Store is easy [Yes, I know you can jailbreak an iPhone], and getting on the net is easy.

We will buy iPads because the interface is great and buying books through iBookstore will be as easy as music and apps.

When Steve Jobs said "We're standing on the shoulders of Amazon’s Kindle..." he wasn't kidding.

In as many ways as the Kindle is revolutionary [the screen, the process of buying books etc], it is also equally crippled and retarded. The absence of colour makes it useless for text books. Books were printed with colour plates over 100 years ago. Imagine trying to study the use of colours in a artist's work, or studying anatomy... in B&W!

No, Apple have to drown the Kindle before Amazon perfect colour. It's a race in which Apple already have a head start, and a serious competitive edge, in the form of their OS and entire business model, which is much more diverse and competent and than Amazon's.

But we shouldn't ignore the other options:

15 years after Amazon revolutionized the way we buy books [and arguably saved reading books as an idea], in 2009 Barnes & Noble finally started to catch on and announced it is to Launch a Kindle Competitor... in Color! And Fujitsu is set to release its Flepia color e-book reader in Japan with a $1,000 price tag.

Whilst these are not competitors for the iPad in the real sense, they are indicators of how their market could be dinted, and where the technology might be going.

Apple's are not the only fruit, but the iPad is looking increasingly like the most credible education companion. We need to get beyond the package pricing and examine the real benefits of a ubiquitous Apple device in the education sector.

Click to expand...

I agree. You people just don't get it. What is good for Apple is good for America. We need to support them and help Apple change the world through this magical product. Buy it!