ummm... that is an AMAZING price for all the great features in the new iBook and so far every review I've read has agreed.

he just must be dumb...

Another poorly worded, extremely personal and biased point of view. He's not giving a reasoned point of view from education, but from his own desire to see frequent updates with spiffy products--which has little to do with educational quality or service.

I'm an experienced educator (18 years), and I think this sort of vacuous rhetoric doesn't do anything except gratify one person's ego. You want to help? Write up your own proposal, get involved with Apple proactively. Worry about educational quality, not product releases.

-Another Educator

I've worked technoloy in a Private K-12 school, I used to work in a Public K-12 School District. Both places I've worked now (4 years total) are not getting away from Macs. Any half intelligent IT/Technology Directory sees that the total ownership cost of an iMac or iBook is lower than a Dell, Compaq...or god forbid, Micron desktop or laptop.

That was simply a typical rant from a typical clueless elementary teacher. Asking your typical elementary teacher for technology input is like asking Bill Gates for key combination short-cuts for OS 9.

Does Macnn print anything nowadays?

Some old, begrudged teacher writes a letter and gets airtime? HAH.

... it will be because of people like Steve Wood, who wail and rend their clothes when Apple fails to deliver the moon and the stars.

With that attitude, what's he going to say when an IT person asks him about the Apple alternative? He'll be glum and defensive and apologetic - about a machine that *ROCKS* - and the IT guy, sensing this, will order a bunch of Dells.

Never fails.

Not everyone agrees with this doofus. A 23,000 unit order ain't bad on day 1 of a new product. Total cost of ownership for Windows makes them more expensive in the long run. Oh, that's right. I forgot. Nobody thinks about the big picture anymore. Instant gratification is what's important not the long-term affect. Wanna bet those 23,000 iBooks will still be in use in 5 years? His Wintel pc's shall have been replaced many times during those 5 years. So much for low-cost.

Get with the times. What an idiot. Feature/price point for the new iBook is amazing, especially compared with Comapqs/HPs/etc that are "sub-notebook consumer" class and often lack things like firewite/ethernet/etc. I think Apple will sell more iBook IIs in two years than they did the original. Go Steve (and Jonathan Ive) go!

JGd

Give me a break. It is not our jobs to sell Apple products. It is APPLE's job.

A 10% better product at 25% higher price with less than 3 % retail market share is a recipe for getting booted out of any market. The education market especially because they are extremely price conscious, and directed by school boards, which are directed by parents who don't want their children learning a useless skill (using Macs) with their own tax money.

An outside player like Apple needs to offer dramatically more functionailty/features at a dramatically lower price than competitors, or they have no significant value to offer. The author is just expressing his frustration that Apple seems incapable of providing this formula for success.



Michael Dell was right about Apple losing the ed market. It has been slowly happening for the past 5 years. That's not our fault for not "evangelizing" more. My school system started phasing out Macs a year and a half ago, and a $1200 laptop is not going to change their minds. Nor is a $900 iMac with a 15" screen and no CD-RW drive.

those 23,000 iBooks were leased for 4 years, so I doubt they will be using them in 5 years, although someone (probably in some 3rd world nation) will get some excellent use out of them...

I bet this guy has a DELL computer at home, DELL laptop for work, a classroom full of DELL computers running "donated" (aww isn't Microsoft SO generous giving away software?) software packages which all show splashes of Microsoft products, run a screensaver with a dancing DELL or MS logo and keep mice happy with DELL mousepads.

And hidden in the computers are tracking programs monitoring what the Kids do or use while they "learn" and surf the Internet.

Food Product companies are doing the SAME thing, putting Coke/Pepsi in schools across America. Running Dominos and McDonalds and whatnot in the cafeteria, passing out product marketing "teaching aid" videos.

Remember that Simpsons episode where the toy company took over the school and had the kids design a new toy? Guess what, thats what is HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.

Its all about MONEY. And of course *we* root for Apple since thats what we use and think is the best in the world.