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Apple Launches $999 iMac for Educational Institutions
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Because this is sufficient enough for pretty much all education needs. The ones who need more power are that require a better graphics card and more memory for graphics, CAD and so on, and then the normal entry level iMac wouldn't be enough either.
At my faculty there are 60% windows and 40% mac desktops, and the Windows ones are about 4-5 years old and is enough for 95% of the courses.
If you're ordering 1,000 iMacs, Apple Edu is going to give you about a 10% discount above the standard Edu discount anyway. Any hardware with a qty. over ten usually nets a 4-6% discount.
Excuse me, but in the UK paying $150 more won't get you anything, because we use British Pounds in this country. So you seem to be confused about something. And exactly what do you think requires a "vastly better processor" that is worth paying more money for?
And while you and I can find a computer that is cheaper than a Macintosh (thought not cheaper than an equivalent Mac), if you compare Apple's prices with what instutions have to pay here for computers because it has to go through some government approved purchase scheme from some government approved vendor, Macs are bloody cheap.
But in the end, they would probably be a lot better served with iPads.
It was a lot easier for people trained in Windows XP to use MacOSX than Windows Vista.
It was a lot easier for people trained in Windows Vista to use MacOSX than Windows 7.
It will be a lot easier for people trained in Windows 7 to use MacOSX than Windows 8.
Time to save lots of cost by switching to an OS that doesn't require expensive training.
There are IT upgrades every year for most institutions. Even though the schools have licenses for a ton of windows software, many schools/universities may approach the end of the same of this year.
I know transitions aren't easy but do not forget, that they do happen one year or the other.
Yes, but Apple doesn't cater exclusively to the UK, right? In fact Apple's biggest market is the U.S. where many school systems traditionally used Macs but started to transition to PCs because they cost less and school budgets are thin - strictly biggest bang for fewest bucks. Apple has been trying to stop the bleeding in this market for years and making serious headway. $150 extra isn't a lot for a single buyer, but for a school system buying 1000 units every dime counts. It's why the MacBook is also still available for edu.
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One other thing left off of the education machines (2010 iMac) is bluetooth. I didn't realize it until I bought a BT trackpad and keyboard, then found it in the system profiler. Quite annoying. I'm not sure how many institutions would use BT but I have a computer in an odd location attached to a smartboard.
One other thing left off of the education machines (2010 iMac) is bluetooth. I didn't realize it until I bought a BT trackpad and keyboard, then found it in the system profiler. Quite annoying. I'm not sure how many institutions would use BT but I have a computer in an odd location attached to a smartboard.
Yep. The simple fact is that MacBooks are popular in education, at least here in the US. That alone is enough to start providing Mac desktops as well for at least part of your network since people will prefer using the same OS for both their laptop and desktop.
Any half decent uni has tonnes of Macs. So of course it will be popular.
The only uni's without Macs will be the ones that dont offer any from of design/art/media course, and there arent many.
"Apple appears to still offer an even cheaper $899 20" iMac that houses the previous generation Intel Core 2 Duo and does not even appear to include OS X Lion." -- MR
I just finished my degree at this university I have to say, Macs are far outnumbered by Windows machines throughout.
There are small clusters for media students, but Windows machines still dominate there.
I think everyone has hit the nail on the head here, but I am going to recap:
1. Schools rarely need powerful machines. Most of them are used for surfing the internet, typing courses, and excel. If more is needed (maybe for more advanced art classes) they will order more powerful ones and put them in a special computer lab reserved for art students (or in the art classroom).
2. $999 is the MSRP for these. However, usually there are bulk discounts which means they might even be as cheap as $899. Now you have a $250 difference.
3. Schools have IT departments that can and will swap out the RAM and put 4GB into them when and if needed and do it themselves (for cheaper than Apple's $100 price). Heck when I was in school I was part of the student support team for our IT department. I spent most of my "support team" time swapping memory.
1. Schools rarely need powerful machines. Most of them are used for surfing the internet, typing courses, and excel. If more is needed (maybe for more advanced art classes) they will order more powerful ones and put them in a special computer lab reserved for art students (or in the art classroom).
2. $999 is the MSRP for these. However, usually there are bulk discounts which means they might even be as cheap as $899. Now you have a $250 difference.
3. Schools have IT departments that can and will swap out the RAM and put 4GB into them when and if needed and do it themselves (for cheaper than Apple's $100 price). Heck when I was in school I was part of the student support team for our IT department. I spent most of my "support team" time swapping memory.
doesn't look like the $999 iMac has thunderbolt:
specs page: http://support.apple.com/kb/SP634
Cost cutting measure I guess.
arn
specs page: http://support.apple.com/kb/SP634
Cost cutting measure I guess.
arn
Wow, a far cry from the eMacs they used to sell!! I have one at my office right now, weighs in at around 50lbs!
As you hinted, it is likely do to cost v.s. need. I would bet that most average users barely tap into 50% of the capability of their fast systems day to day.
I am not sure how it was in your school, however a majority of computers in my day were used for word processing, spreadsheets, web surfing, research, light photo editing, and even some graphics rendering. If a computer was needed for video editing, heavy photo processing, 3d Rendering, modeling or otherwise, those departments would have dedicated / faster computers for that purpose.
There is no need for a school district to spend $1500+ per computer to fill entire labs, or classrooms when a cheaper alternative exists. I sure as hell don't want to school district I pay taxes for, doing such frivilous spending!!
To be fair, not many people can and will be able to tell the difference between a good TN and an IPS display. There are differences, but not enough for most who call themselves 'power users' to pick out without digging deep.
It would be a hard sale for someone to convince me that I need an IPS display to do reports, calculations, web surfing, or similar.
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I worked in an elementary school years ago and we replaced the aging Dell computers in the lab with white imacs. At the time, they were really powerful (and probably still in use today) and what did we use them for....?
Tux paint, Photobooth, and Linerider.
These new macs are more than powerful.
Tux paint, Photobooth, and Linerider.
These new macs are more than powerful.
Regarding the RAM and HDD space saving techniques.
Schools don't need that. Most of their applications/files/etc are stored on servers. At least in my school, most applications other than the ones that come with the computer are stored on a server, and we access it through there. All files are stored on the server. We basically don't even have access to the local filesystem.
Now, RAM? What intensive applications do students run that you wouldn't be fine with 2GB? Unless they're based in the engineering/computer science field, you'd be perfectly fine with 2GB.
Schools don't need that. Most of their applications/files/etc are stored on servers. At least in my school, most applications other than the ones that come with the computer are stored on a server, and we access it through there. All files are stored on the server. We basically don't even have access to the local filesystem.
Now, RAM? What intensive applications do students run that you wouldn't be fine with 2GB? Unless they're based in the engineering/computer science field, you'd be perfectly fine with 2GB.
I love the imac but I would be really disappointed if i was a student and they bought these. Of course it depends on what type of school too but really would prefer mac pro's over a room of low end imacs.