[zeebe]

Below is a copy of an email I received from my local Apple guy. I am the tech guy at a private school. The thing to notice about this email is the first section (#1). It talks about discounts on eMacs and iBooks until March 31, 2006. Do you think they are trying to get rid of stock before some announcement on April 1?
What do you think?

here is the e-mail:
1. Great Pricing until March 31, 2006 on selected machines
2. Review: MacBook Pro
3. Review: Apple Macmini
4. Operation Photo Rescue
5. Apple Video Series: Podcasting in Education
6. Profiles in Success

1.Great Pricing for a limited time on selected machines
Between now and March 31, 2006, contact Matt Guenther or Sally Cozort and ask about significant discounts on items ranging from eMacs to iBooks in quantities of 10 or more!

2. Review: MacBook Pro
After using the new MacBook Pro for a few days, Yuval Kossovsky writes for Computerworld, “All in all, this laptop offers a welcome improvement in speed and performance and would be an excellent purchase for PowerBook users looking for the next bump up.” [Mar 10, 2006

3. Review: Apple Mac mini
For PC Magazine, Joel Santo Domingo gives the new Mac mini four out of five stars, stating, “And because the Intel Core Duo is found inside, this mini should be just as appealing to traditional Windows-based PC users as to diehard Macheads.” [Mar 08, 2006]

4. Operation Photo Rescue
Using Mac computers, photojournalist Rebecca Sell and photo editor Dave Ellis from the Free Lance-Star daily newspaper in Fredericksburg, VA, spent a week in Pass Christian, MS, helping victims of Hurricane Katrina to restore photos that were damaged by the storm. Learn more about Operation Photo Rescue on the volunteers’ photo blog created using iWeb. [Feb 17, 2006]

5. Apple Video Series: Podcasting in Education
Podcasting is a powerful tool that allows for communication and distribution of educational content — content that can be synced to iPod for learning on the go. Explore podcasting and its benefits for education in this free, three-part video series.

6. Profiles in Success

Sustainable 1 to 1 Learning Transforms District’s Culture Denali Borough School District’s 1 to 1 learning environment has now been implemented in all three of the district’s schools, plus its “Peak Performance” home school program.




Matt Guenther
Apple
Inside Account Executive ND, SD, MN
[email protected]
512-674-6878-direct
800-800-2775 ext. 46878
512-674-2321-fax

Sally Cozort
Apple
Education Account Executive
[email protected]
952-423-7242 Office
651-491-5440 Cell
866-873-5747 Fax


For Order Status: http:www.apple.com/orderstatus
Apple Store/Web Proposals: http://www.apple.com/education/store
Home Page: http://www.apple.com
Education: http://www.apple.com/education
Support: http://www.apple.com/support

For Post-Sales questions:
[email protected]


I emailed Matt to ask what the cost was and why such a short period of time, no response yet. When I get one I will post that too.

[uicandrew]

well, last fall, there was the whole promotion of get an ipod mini for free with purchase of a new mac for edu customers, and then after that promotion expired, the imac G5 with isight was released.

[JKT]

New iBook? Probably.
New eMac? Probably not.

On the first of April? Unlikely as it is a Saturday. Sometime soon after? Probably.

[zeebe]

Update:

Here is his return message:

I have actually sent out several updates for special pricing that initially ended March 24th, however, the pricing was extended until this Friday. So this update is just for the extension of the pricing.


Right now, we are able to offer:

$100 off on 12" iBooks with Applecare, and $150 off 14" iBooks with Applecare

On eMacs, we are able to offer $25 off CD Rom eMacs, $50 off Combo drive eMacs, and $100 off Superdrive eMacs, no Applecare required for the eMac pricing. Again, these are all quantities of 10 or more and this pricing is good until this Friday March 31, 2006.

Matt

Matt Guenther
Apple
Inside Account Executive ND, SD, MN
[email protected]
512-674-6878-direct
800-800-2775 ext. 46878
512-674-2321-fax

For Order Status: http:www.apple.com/orderstatus
Apple Store/Web Proposals: http://www.apple.com/education/store
Home Page: http://www.apple.com
Education: http://www.apple.com/education
Support: http://www.apple.com/support

For Post-Sales questions:
[email protected]

So it sounds like it was an extended offer. Although, I do not remember getting one earlier. Just because it is a Saturday, doesn't mean Steve can't surprise us! I know it has never been done before, but this is their big 30 year anniversary. Also, why not update the eMac? They need it for the education customers, trust me, I would look at a different route if all they offered were Minis and iMacs. I want an all in one in my school lab, and one WITH OUT an LCD screen. Have you ever seen 26 Kindergarteners touching the screen repeatedly telling their friends to look at their screen? I have, and I would not want that with LCDs.

[mduell]

I think the eMac is dead... I'm surprised Apple hasn't released a crippled 15" iMac for the education market to compete with Dell. Dell and Apple went from marketshare parity in the education sector in 2000 to a 3-to-1 lead for Dell in 2004. $500 systems with LCDs are hard to turn down.

[zeebe]

yeah, but if you look in a lot of school labs, at least elementary schools in Minnesota, they have either old iMac labs or eMac labs. This is because the LCDs will quickly become useless when the K-3 group of kids start touching the screens, and trust me, no matter how much you tell not to touch them, they still will. If Apple wants to compete with Dell, they need to sell the eMacs at $500, just not offer everything. Just a simple single core Intel with CD-R/DVD drive and an 80 GB hard drive.

[volcano]

Eventually, LCD screens will become as common and mainstream as the CRT. When that happens, kids will no longer be exposed to CRT screens- meaning that there will be nothing intriguing about an LCD screen any longer.

Yes, I used to be the "I want to touch that screen!" kind of kid, but that's simply because I grew up looking at CRT monitors. The same goes for CD players and iPods - nowadays, every kid wants to get their hands on an iPod - and a portable CD player (which used to be the "in" thing that everyone wanted) won't get touched for weeks.

Hopefully they introduce a new education-specific computer for that particular market, though - I'm going to take a wild guess and suspect that most schools wouldn't like a built-in iSight in every iMac in their classrooms and computer labs, unless they were able to disable them entirely. To me, it seems silly not to create a stripped down version of the current iMac and make it available to education markets. Not necessarily a slower processor - just a model without the built-in iSight, Front Row, Photo Booth, and all those recreational, media-related devices and applications.

[BikerJonTN]

Don't forget that March 31 ends the fiscal quarter. Most companies (regardless of the market they're in) like to run the numbers to see how their special offers performed before they announce newer - possibly better - specials for the upcoming quarter.

[WOPR]

Originally Posted by volcano

Eventually, LCD screens will become as common and mainstream as the CRT. When that happens, kids will no longer be exposed to CRT screens- meaning that there will be nothing intriguing about an LCD screen any longer.

Yes, I used to be the "I want to touch that screen!" kind of kid, but that's simply because I grew up looking at CRT monitors. The same goes for CD players and iPods - nowadays, every kid wants to get their hands on an iPod - and a portable CD player (which used to be the "in" thing that everyone wanted) won't get touched for weeks.

Kids (and a lot of bloody adults too, who should know better) touch screens no matter what they're made of, kids don't touch them because they're LCDs. And hard plastic anti-glare screens are easily available to protect LCDs anyway.

No way in hell will Apple release another eMac - it had a poor quality screen that shimmied, speakers that when turned up above a whisper made the screen wobble even more, and a fan that could run a wind tunnel, with a noise to match.

[Agent69]

Originally Posted by WOPR

Kids (and a lot of bloody adults too, who should know better) touch screens no matter what they're made of, kids don't touch them because they're LCDs. And hard plastic anti-glare screens are easily available to protect LCDs anyway.

No way in hell will Apple release another eMac - it had a poor quality screen that shimmied, speakers that when turned up above a whisper made the screen wobble even more, and a fan that could run a wind tunnel, with a noise to match.

The eMac had its problems but the screen of mine was flawless and I don't think it is justified to make such a generalized statement about them. The initial units did have a problem with a cable that ran to the CRT but this was fixed in manufacturing.

I do agree with you in regards to noise, however. I think my late model MDD was quieter than my 700mhz eMac was.