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Apple vs Dell in Education
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Chicago, IL USA
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I'm curious what everyone thinks about the apparent holy war Dell has started against Apple in the Education market. It seems like there's a new quote posted online every day in which some Dell exec bashes Apple, or at the very least trumpets Dell's advances in Education.
I realize Apple has lost a LOT of ground in Education in the past couple of years, but why has Dell suddenly chosen to get so aggressive?
It'll be interesting to see what Steve has to say when he keynotes the National Educational Computing Association conference this June.
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www.joshology.com
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Safe in the womb of an everlasting night
You find the darkness can give the brightest light.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA
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i think dell realizes that education is a big market. not only do you have the education market as it is right now...theres a big influence on people and their computer choice based on what they grew up learning or were forced to use in school. its a great market to be in for computer makers.
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I used to use a PC.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: USA at the moment
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Apple has been stupid to lose so much to Dell. It's just Apple has no business sense. It's good at selling to graphics professionals etc, but when it needs to get out into the real world, it can't handle it. That's why its market share is still so poor. Dell on the other hand is a brilliantly run company. Products may just be Wintel clones, but they sure can shift the stuff.
This doesn't mean they're right to start laying into Apple all of a sudden though
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: LA, CA
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Dell won't have the lead for long, Apple lost out becasue it changed up the way they did business in the middle of the eduaction buying season. Now with powerschool, Michel Dell know they'er gonna have to fight to keep their spot, so he tries to spew enough FUD now, and hope everyone eles starts repeating it so much that it becomes a fact. One school districts are hit with the support cost, they'll rethinking their positions. Apple just has to keep on the ball and provide some good service and they'll have the education market within a year.
Brandon
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: England
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theUpsetter (nice name btw) is exaclty right, Dell are rubbishing Apple because they are afraid.
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Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Irvine, CA
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I noticed that Apple is paying close attention to the education market now. They now have EdView and other internet related things that pertain to the lower classes(elementary and middle school). Also, with Jobs speaking at the conference mention above would be abig boon for Apple and the education market. I also realize that once the apps are carbonized, that Mac OS X will become a big player in the higher education markets (high school and college).
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: England
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I hope my uni buy a truck load of G4's when Maya is released.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Oct 1999
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Anyone who thinks that PowerSchool is a trump card is very near-sighted. You think Dell couldn't have afforded the 60 million for that company?
Similarly, Apple lost a lot of market share because of their transition last year... they're not going to make that up. Those schools that they lost have new PCs. They won't be trashing them for new Macs anytime soon.
Apple's education stake is in trouble. Period.
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Senior User
Join Date: Aug 2000
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Apple is being a bunch of assholes. They need to kick Dell's ass here. This is one area where they had the lead and could dominate and they are letting it fall away. Give schools the damn things for free who cares. whatever it takes. use it as a tax write off. give them the overstock, old models, whatever.
One place Apple still has a HUGE hold on is NYC. Somethibg like 95-98 percent of the NYC Public Schools have macs. District 8 even has 2 schools where every student gets either an iMac or iBook to take home with free internet access. But they don't advertise this!!! WHY NOT!!!
Apple doesn't go to the schools and set everything up like Dell does and work with teachers and coordinators like Dell does. they need to do that!
and better prices!
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Denville, NJ.
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Misha, you called it exactly right. When Apple dropped the ball it was a mistake that will take many years from which to recover. If they do at all. Not only will schools not dump their Wintel boxes just to switch to Apple, but now that Dell has them on their customer list, schools will get bombarded with promos and incentives to keep going with Dell. Trade-ins, support deals, etc. The only way I see for Apple to get back in is if Dell does something stupid like Apple did. Not likely. Mike Dell is no dope. That being said, he's not smart enough to sell me a computer.
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iDisk: rseijas
Homepage: homepage.mac.com/rseijas
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Dragonlance
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i think this education thing is rather serious. if you see the machines the schools are replacing, are the macs from the mid 90s, so inorder to gain share apple is going to have to set a much higher standard, and so when schools want to upgrade, they choose apple. bear in mind that this is a long term thing. we are just now seeing the effects of the mistakes apple made in the 90s.
i think the only thing that apple has for an immediate turnaround of the situation is slash prices drastically for eduation and educators, and offer much better support to them.
the long term solution would be to wage a price war against the PC makers, and boast better educational software.
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Bald Canadian Prairie
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I think that Apple needs to dig a bit into their pricing for education. But more importantly, stress a lot of free stuff. And push integration. Make sure that schools buy from Apple know that they are getting much more than a bunch of computers. They need to have things like Airport and all the software in place to take advantage of that mobility in the classroom. Apple also needs to bolster Edview and the like and push the idea that if you get Macs, you're getting into a very big community educators and students. One big bad package with the Mac as the key.
Integration has always been Apple's advantage, and they just need to make it worthwhile for schools to buy into.
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i close my mouth now and i scream
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Vocatvs atque non vocatvs Deusaderit
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Washington, DC
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Apple has to get serious and now. Software and hardware selection isn't really helping at this point, so all that's left is integration of services that students/teachers/admins find easy to use and are cool and portable (i.e. they can pass from school to home). This is where iTools/Homepage for education and PowerSchool come in. Most K-12 teachers have absolutely no clue how to post hw, grades, and info on the web even though it would be great and easy for students and parents alike. If Apple can bring this easily, they'll hit a grand slam.
For now, the ball's in Apple's court, time will tell what they do with it.
krove
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*The next sentence is entirely true...
*The previous sentence is most decidedly false...
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Suffolk, VA
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I don't hear Dell taunting Apple as to their major successses in the graphics arts and music industry. Oh, that' right...
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: NY
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someone needs to stick something down dells throat, i think we got the picture, this gloating there doing isent helping anyone
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: May 2000
Location: IL, USA
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Hey, Misha, have you checked out PowerSchool? It's a pretty awesome package. We are seriously looking into getting it for the school where I teach/play with computers. It beats the tar out of ANY other school administration software out there.
Daishi is right, btw, Apple needs to really cut prices for educational institutions, esp. k-12 schools. Giving out freebies, maybe even some free hardware, would be a great way to show potential customers the greatness of the Mac platform. It would also be great if Apple put together a team composed of actual teachers/sysadmins to go out to schools and demonstrate the Mac and it's ease of use/administration.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Oct 1999
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Originally posted by ctt1wbw:
I don't hear Dell taunting Apple as to their major successses in the graphics arts and music industry. Oh, that' right...
Yes, this is a good thing. We haven't lost on *all* fronts yet!
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Jamaica Plain, MA
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someone needs to stick something down dells throat, i think we got the picture, this gloating there doing isent helping
As I recall, at a past MacWorld Steve made some comments in his keynote regarding Apple's intention to beat them in education sales or some other area. "putting a target on Dell's [the company] back" is the way he described it, if I recall correctly. (I know there are some MacWorld junkies out there who can get me the exact quote)
With Apple's recent collapse in sales and bungling of the education market, I think this is Dell's way of responding to what Steve said.
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Senior User
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Cambridge, England
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Originally posted by DoctorGonzo:
As I recall, at a past MacWorld Steve made some comments in his keynote regarding Apple's intention to beat them in education sales or some other area. "putting a target on Dell's [the company] back" is the way he described it, if I recall correctly. (I know there are some MacWorld junkies out there who can get me the exact quote)
With Apple's recent collapse in sales and bungling of the education market, I think this is Dell's way of responding to what Steve said.
I think Steve said he'd beat Dell on inventory management, which he did, for a while at least...
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: WA
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Originally posted by ctt1wbw:
I don't hear Dell taunting Apple as to their major successses in the graphics arts and music industry. Oh, that' right...
That is because Apple makes the whole package. Dell is just an assembler of parts. The Apple machine works well as is and with nothing added it will perform nicely.
On the other hand, can you see a bunch of teachers dealing with OS X?
Not many schools have IT people to fix problems.
Best thing to happen in our schools were the IMac cause they left the floppy drive out and the goofy kids couldn't jam paper, an upside down floppy and other stuff into the mechanism. In time the teachers will revolt against having PC's in their classrooms. Too much trouble shooting and not enough time. PC are difficult to fix when the system is tampered with. (which kids do a lot of)
In my experience the teachers really have no reason to use computers in the classrooms, a kid will occasional do MathBlaster or some such thing, but most of the power of the system is left untapped. Dell has the right idea by training teachers to use the computers.
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