Mac Marketshare at Universities Booming?

[Virgil-TB2]

Mac quality *is* down, but 2007 is special

It's all rather impressive. But I hate to rain on everyone's parade, but Apple seem to overstretch themselves: proof is the rather numerous hardware/software interaction issues in recent months. I wish they stopped putting so much energy in the iPhone and concentrated on checking their firmwares and OSX updates before releasing them.

I agree on the "Apple is over-reaching itself" comment, but in all fairness, 2007 is a year like no other for Apple.

Before the year is out they will have revisioned every hardware product in their line-up, come out with a new version of every software package they sell, put out a new OS, and introduced two completely new products (three if you count the Touch). At the beginning of the year you could still buy their stock for under a hundred bucks, by the year end it will likely be closer to two hundred.

So yeah, they are really reaching here and I agree that they are making a really unprecedented amount of mistakes and their quality is down from where it usually is. But you still gotta take into account all that other good stuff.

If any year was "the Year of Apple" this is it.

 

[Virgil-TB2]

That's quite profound in an odd little way.

Thinking about my circle of friends; the creative ones either have or want (through not being to afford one) a Mac. The ones with dead end call centre or jobless jobs use PC's.

Crazy how it's just an OS and good hardware (in my experience) that causes this rift. They're both doing pretty much what the other does, just one of them does it without fuss

Steve Jobs thought of this decades ago. This is actually an intentional strategy for Apple, which is why they have always emphasized and strongly supported education markets.

The fact that places like Universities have huge numbers of people using Macs is partly what saved them from extinction when Microsoft tried to cheat Apple out of existence. Macs have always been attractive to smart, creative people and are aimed at helping these people do the things they need to do.

 

[FoxyKaye]

This trend is incredible for me as when I was at university in the early 90s the reverse was happening. The Mac labs were empty and people queued for the Windows 3.1 machines, and every year less and less students and lecturers had Macs on their desks. Great to see the pendulum finally swinging back

Wow - do I ever remember that. I was at Cornell, and they were ripping out Macs at an incredible rate after a very brief flirtation with OS/2 - by my senior year (1994-1995), the University's "policy" was that Macs were unsupported. What a change since then.

This same trend is starting to take root in the nonprofit sector, where traditionally PCs have been the cheap favorite. But, more and more nonprofits are starting to realize that they might be able to save some money in equipment, but the overhead to support Windows is huge.

I might be pretty annoyed with Apple lately re: its business practices and DRM and the iPhone, but it's stuff really does just "work" right out of the box. OS X is really a beautiful thing to administer on a network.

I hope developers in both the education and nonprofit sectors wake up soon - supporting Macs is becoming profitable again.

 

[guzhogi]

I work in an elementary school district w/ 9 schools & an administration building and we have all Macs. SEveral of the teachers/staff have Macs @ home, too. At the school I work at, the custodian uses a PC for HVAC kind of stuff I guess and I have a MacBook w/ Windows on it for computerized testing we do. But in a district w/ about 4000 kids that uses only Macs, that'll definitely make an impression.

 

[masse]

I'm at Georgia Tech in a Chem lecture right now.

I see 4 mbp, an i book, and a few more macbooks. They are everywhere in college which is a good sign. Today's student's are tomorrow's business leaders. Spot a trend?

 

[Rantipole]

Um, does anyone else have deja vu? Didn't they run this identical story not too long ago?

 

[Consultant]

Imagine what will happen if 92% of the world’s personal computer population consists of Apple machines. Will a similar problem as in the Windows world emerge? Will Apple fall victim to the same lame practices? In other words; is this a blessing or potential curse?

No, Mac OSX is way more efficient in the underlying OS and user interface.

Windows:

- Even installing additional programs, without running them, will slow down the machine over time.
- Need frequent defrag.
- Need to nuke windowz a few times a year if you don't want it to slow down to the crawl.
- Has various interface inconsistencies which slows down productivity. I can show you 4 MS programs that have different behaviors even with the most basic functions of opening and closing windows in the programs.
- Every part of windows is designed to slow down a user. See how long it takes to get you to a nested program. In XP, it's a second or so delay for each item (but you have to do it at least twice or three times). In Vista it's even worst.

crossifixio is exactly right: After switching to Macs,

many ... cant believe how much time they used to waste trying to do simple tasks on pcs

 

[sananda]

I'm at Georgia Tech in a Chem lecture right now.

get on with your work

 

[guzhogi]

I might be pretty annoyed with Apple lately re: its business practices and DRM and the iPhone, but it's stuff really does just "work" right out of the box. OS X is really a beautiful thing to administer on a network.

Agreed. Apple has a lot of really great products, but doesn't want to risk letting 3rd party hard/software to ruin the experience. Understandable to an extent, but Apple's way passed the line and is deeply in the control freak area. Also, assembly problems keep popping up. You don't even want to know how many power adaptors I had to buy for my current & previous laptops. Plus, my current one's screen, a MBP, sometimes doesn't want to turn on when I start up or automatically turns the screen off when opening it from sleep. I have to hold down the power button until it turns off and restart repeatedly just to get it working right. Plus, I already had to get the motherboard replaced once.

 

[rashdown_online]

Blooming Students...

...I was too busy trying to find two pennys to rub together for dinner (after 6 pints of Guinness a night) and massaging my ever increasing over-draft, while trying to pull (not as successfully as I hoped) the ladies.

How times have changed!

(not for me as I'm still trying to find 2 pennys to rub together! But down to 4 pints of guinness - and certainly not as successful with the ladies! I blame the guinness).

Getting funky laptops and stuff! I mean, I had to do with a x486DX-33 with 4Mb RAM + 200Mb HDD + 4Mb VGA that ran AutoCAD12 like a beast! It wasn't portable, but it certainly WAS secure (no Net back then). Oh how life was when we all read books and journals from the library!...

 

[happydude]

this is great . . . but . . .

so apple is almost looking like they might be hitting their 80's/early 90's education computer domination percentages. obviously good news, but apple is still targeting the wrong audience for "world domination" as one post said. they need to go after the business world and in a big way. yeah, college kids think their apple is cool, but entering the work force, they'll have to switch to whatever their boss demands - 98% (just a generalization without any fact checking - no flaming please, meant only to illustrate a point) of the time that's a pc. in turn, the computer these people use at home will more often than not reflect what they use at work. the guy who pays the paycheck has a lot more sway over the computing platform being used at work and at home than the obvious user friendly cool appeal apple has.

i would just like apple to more aggressively going after the business market. a cheaper but still powerful tower, cheaper monitor, networking solutions made apparent, etc. jobs went after the schools/arts, gates went after businesses . . . look where apple is compared to windows. apple should learn from history and start going after the business market.

 

[himansk]

im studying in columbia univ in ny, in the cs department more than half 60-65% students use a mac laptop, most of the professors use a mac in their offices. i was fairly surprised to see so many in use when i joined in september

 

[Mavimao]

I first went to college in 2001 at Dension University in Ohio. The school had a few iMacs scattered around with OS9 and it was a pain to use. I was a mac user then so I put up with the random, numerous crashes and the completely non-friendly method of logging into novell to access your student drive, just because I knew that deep inside macs were very awesome and that this was a poor representation of its potential. At the time it was very hard to convince others to use the macs, especially when Word would crash for no reason and there was no convincing piece of software that the macs had that the PCs didn't.

The only people to have macs were people who's parents didn't know any better and bought them an iMac much to their disdain, and computer geeks who knew better

Fast foward a few years and OSX matured, Apple introduced iTunes, iLife iPods, and other neat gadgets. Macs were safe, fun, easy, and cool. They've become a fashion statement (perhaps to the grief of many longtime mac users), and people love to follow a crowd.

Now when I pop in to visit campus, I can't believe the amound of glowing apples I see in the library. It's a whole new world.

 

[MacLovin611]

yeah, college kids think their apple is cool, but entering the work force, they'll have to switch to whatever their boss demands - 98% (just a generalization without any fact checking - no flaming please, meant only to illustrate a point) of the time that's a pc.

I go to Penn and I'd have to say that 2/3 of the laptops you see people bring with them to study at the library or other lounges are macs. I have a white macbook and my several of my friends have expressed their jealousy. There is definitely a cool factor with the macs with the up and coming generation.

As for the workplace, that's what boot camp is for .

 

[Clive At Five]

I never thought I'd see the Pioneer Press quoted on MacRumors.

Their newspaper is okay but I prefer the StarTribune... Better crosswords

-Clive

 

[Mudo]

Strikes close to home

I work for the official bookstore of Virginia Tech. We are also the only authorized education reseller in a 60+ mile radius.

Our big program here is the engineering department, which is hellbentforleather set on tablet pc at the moment. Our incoming freshman class this year was 5,500. Out of that, we sold 3,000 units -- our best year ever. Our best selling brand was ... Apple. We offered modified mid whitebooks, blackbooks, and the range of mbps (plus a high resolution 17").

Now, in all fairness, that's strictly speaking number of units. We sold way more units of tablets -- spread out across 3 manufacturers -- but for best selling brand it was Apple all the way.

Our machines were specially priced and thus excluded the iPod/ printer offer, so I don't see that as a factor.

Personally, I bought my iPod after I bought my iMac. What drove my personal decision to get a Mac after building my own PCs for the last 10 years was simple -- economics. I can run three operating systems on this machine, and thus practically everything out there, so it's cheap when you look at it that way.

 

[digitalbiker]

Intel switch made the difference!

PioneerPress is way of ... It should be attributed to great design, the switch to Intel and Boot Camp / Parallels - at least those are the most important factors among my student friends

I agree. The switch to Intel was the biggest factor. It allows computer science students to run linux for studies and exercises. It allows business and english majors to run windows for compatibility with exchange, word, and a whole host of other university standard software.

The students get the advantage of using a great Mac OS, iLife, iWork, iTunes, etc. while at the same time being compatible with university requirements.

Next, Apple needs to get their act together with game developers. If Apple were to bring a large number of big name games native to the Mac it would double these university sales.

 

[happydude]

I never thought I'd see the Pioneer Press quoted on MacRumors.

Their newspaper is okay but I prefer the StarTribune... Better crosswords

-Clive

better comics too

 

[ki4pcm]

Nmu

At Northern Michigan University they started a program where students got thinkpads to use while in school at part of their tuition. The Art and Design students protested for a couple years and then got Mac laptops. I was a computer science major but when I had to tutor students in the low level cources that had macs I loved it, other than figuring out how to use the track pad rather than the nipple.

One computer science student bought his own mac, several declared art and design until their last semester, and two profs used macs.

I graduated two and a half years ago and already I was seeing a shift. The art and design department had a liquidation sale and the computer science students were buying the old iMacs (333 MHz CRT iMacs) to try them out, many deciding to switch from their thinkpads with linux to the mac platform for their personal computer. They actually had people lined up for several hours before the sale started (they were selling them for $100 in 2004). That's when I switched as well.

But I still don't think any of them would give up linux on the server.

Oh, and now I have a PPC Mac Mini, a black MacBook (gen 1), an iPhone, and an iPod mini, and a shuffle.. I only touch windows at work. I'm submitting this from work on my macbook (using synergy) and it's one of 7 macs that make the trip in to the building daily in a tech company with about 24 people at this location.

 

[OdduWon]

cal poly macs

i have recently been informed that Cal Poly university will be replacing ALL their old PC,s with Mac's. The reason, They do windows, and don't crash every hour. Also the store on campus, no less than a year ago, had 4 models of windows laptops and the complete line of apples. Now, only macs. the space where the pc's were is now acessories for the MB's and MBP's. perhaps the reasoning is that with apple you get a near top of the line machine without having to know what makes a top notch machine. all the macs were more powerful that the PC's that were sitting next to them and this was a year ago, now the gap is even more evident.

this is probbably why i ve seen appl shares rise from $44 a share to $150+ since ive been a MR member. just wait till 10.5 comes out lol

 

[yzp]

I noticed this fact at Université Laval, in quebec city!

the prices dropped, and people spread the word that MACs are AMAZING!!

 

[Detektiv-Pinky]

Well, I fail to see why that software would be better than free, open-source software. It CAN be of course, but being closed does not automatically mean that it's better.

That said, there are LOTS of closed, paid-for professional software for Linux.


Well, there are other pieces of pro-software besides Photoshop, and I fail to see why everyone keeps on bringing up Photoshop.

I never said that closed-source source software is BETTER than open-source. I said that I like to have the choice to use whatever I feel better suited to the job at hand. And for this Photoshop is but one example, where people (including me) know how to use it and to apply it to certain tasks. The $$ for the software package beeing only part of the cost associated with the tool. I think the time to learn to use certain complex types of software is far more costly here.

And like it or not. Photoshop and MS-Office are the standard tools in most companies I know about and here the Mac has a clear advantage over Linux in that it allows to run these tools of the trade.

My experience with open-source tools is rather mixed. Althrough there are some very well supported projects, others sadly have stalled and are hardly supported/developed at all (i am still looking for an open-source alternative for Visio). It is not uncommon for some very promising tool to become unsupported over time...

 

[milo]

It's all rather impressive. But I hate to rain on everyone's parade, but Apple seem to overstretch themselves: proof is the rather numerous hardware/software interaction issues in recent months. I wish they stopped putting so much energy in the iPhone and concentrated on checking their firmwares and OSX updates before releasing them.

Apple has some QC issues every year. Every company does. Without statistics to back it up, claiming that quality is down this year is just a wild guess based on anectodote.

Can you imagine how often I have cursed the Mac when writing a Webmail I have accidentally closed Safari by hitting right--q while trying to enter an @?

You could start by trying the safari 3 beta, it pops a dialogue box instead of quitting if you've entered text.


And AAPL stock is already closer to 200 than 100. But by the end of the year it will be much closer, may even hit that point if there are enough reports of great holiday season sales.

 

[jmadlena]

This has been obvious to me for a while now. But then again, I am sitting in a giant lecture hall right now, surrounded by many, many Macs. Four in the front row alone. Gotta go, the lecture is starting!

 

[jlwillia]

even the profession most hesitant to change might be moving to Macs

I'm a first year law student in Nebraska. My universitie's "official" policy is that Macs are not supported. However, I'm in class right now attempting to listen to Civil Procedure and I spot 4 Macbook Pros, 5 or 6 Macbooks and I'm going to buy my MB Pro as soon as Leopard is released. There are about 80 or 90 students in my class.

Our lawschool requires Windows to use the test-taking software (no more writing out 10 page final exams in a bluebook), otherwise Macs would probably be more prominent. I believe the release of Leopard and Bootcamp will allow a new wave of Macs in law schools.

Even lawyers may be changing their ways to Mac....that is saying something!