“Unbeknownst to much of the general public, there’s actually a larger gap in quality (and in the rate of technological advancement) between Apple computers and their Windows counterparts, than there is between the iPod and its imitators,” John A. Hanson writes for FactWatch.
“And Apple just released it’s most advanced OS upgrade yet, ‘Tiger,’ while Microsoft continues to labor on it’s upgrade to Windows XP, dubbed Longhorn, due out in late 2006. Microsoft has about a year and a half to attempt it’s typically bizarre collection of kludges only superficially imitating the Mac of days-gone-by,” Hanson writes. “It’s in this context Henrico County school officials decided to end a pilot period of leasing Apple iBooks to instead lease Dell Inspiron 600m’s,” Hanson writes.
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Henrico school officials on Apple to Dell switch: The logo will change, but the tool is the same – April 30, 2005
Henrico school board dumps Apple Macs, picks Dells with Windows – April 29, 2005
Henrico County Apple iBook plan in jeopardy? – April 02, 2005
Survey shows support for Henrico iBook program with ‘lukewarm support’ for Apple’s Mac OS X – March 07, 2005
Henrico poll finds students are using iBooks successfully – February 11, 2005
Henrico iBooks raise concerns among some parents – May 28, 2004
Henrico high school laptop program to continue, but will it still feature Apple Macs? – February 24, 2005
More schools experience Windows virus, worm problems while Macs just keep working – August 22, 2003
A tale of two school systems: Windows schools crippled while Mac schools unaffected – August 21, 2003
Glad to see not everyone wants to be a Windows patcher
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NEXT IN THE NEWS:
Henrico replaces all DVD players in A/V department with Laser Disc.
Ehhh.. I think they just ordered the latest model: Dull Conspirion 600!!
tards.
Excellent article. Great read.
Sixth post! Yeh-hehesssssss.
Listen, I’m reminded of an old joke. You know de one: What’s the difference between Henrico County, Virginia and Cobb County, Georgia?
One just bought basic computers for their students. The other will be buying them from Apple anyway in a couple of years. Yeh-hessss.
Hey, come onnnn — I love de people of Virginia. Really I do. They just scare me.
It still amazes me when “educators” and civic “leaders” reveal themselves for the real ‘sheep’ that they are. It’s no wonder kids come out of school and can’t read, write and do ‘rithmatic (ah, is that a word? public school grad here).
No wonder our entire society is awash with mediocrity!
Glad to see some ray of truth in the bleakness of FUD coming through.
On latest news, we more than tripled sales of floppy disks to Henrico County.
Life’s good when there are lots of fishes to catch!
Dells have two USB ports and a trackpad. Whoopee!!
Damn that would sell me a laptop PC. Oh yea and it comes with Windows XP. Wow now I can look forward to hackers, viruses, trojans, and lots and lots of spyware. Yes!!!
What a bunch of maroons. The teachers thought the iBooks were down to much. Wait till they start running those Dells. Then they’ll know how unreliable PC’s are when the students get spyware and viruses from Kaza and others places. It’s really going to be a fiasco just getting the students running let alone getting them to do something school related. I can’t wait for the latest stories to come out from them.
I still wonder what the students and parents are thinking of this switch.
Welcome to reality folks. Instead of blaming the school board, how about also looking at the parents.
Ever thought that maybe some parents lobbied the school board for Dull computers?
The school board answers to the parents and taxpayers, blame them for the stupid move.
Gambit,
Terrible article, bad read.
What a completely sketchy website and bias article. These types of people provide another compelling reason to shy away from the Mac platform. They do more harm than good and further isolate the “elitist” community. I’m glad that our students will now have the business world’s computer of choice.
>>Apple just released it’s most advanced OS upgrade yet<<
hmm… trying to imagine a scenario where this would not be the case grade… (not counting MS bloatware of course). It’s not very common for an OS upgrade (or any type of upgrade) to be less advanced than prior versions.
MacMania said: “…write and do ‘rithmatic (ah, is that a word? public school grad here)”
I just checked (by by holding down Cmd-Ctrl-D and placing the mouse over your word – another Tiger feature!) and, no, it ain’t a word.
Hee, hee.
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(MW – “reaction”, as in what would a Windows’ user’s reaction to this be?)
<<I’m glad that our students will now have the business world’s computer of choice.>>
I wasn’t aware that the classroom was “the business world.” That’s your first mistake. The point of getting computers in the hands of students is so they can learn, not just so they can be like “the business world.” The only thing these poor kids will “learn” is how quickly a Winblows PC will crash when it gets infested with spyware and viruses.
to ‘not a news source’…
The main reason the ‘business’ world has chosen Windows is COD (cost of deployment), not to be confused with TCO (total cost of ownership).
The business world of tomorrow will be completely different for what it is today, and while I can not say with certainty that it will be Mac-centric, I feel quite confident in the fact that Windows is not going to be anywhere near as pivotal a player as it’s had the luxury of being for the past 20 years.
The masses are much more knowledgeable about alternatives and the comparisons are being brought to the public en masse.
Today’s children will be the decision makers in tomorrows business world.
I for one feel that they deserve to be taught on secure platforms with well designed applications that feature cutting edge technology today!
Microsoft is trying to build a skyscraper on a Doublewide’s foundation.
Babylon will crumble…
WOW, thier tech director is a Moron:
As for software, Morton said everyone he talked to at every level wanted Microsoft Office. The iBooks utilize AppleWorks. “Office will be on every machine,” Morton said.
Freeman High School Principal Dr. Ed Pruden, who was on the evaluation committee, said the switch from AppleWorks to Office will be the biggest concern for teachers. “We have a commitment from Dell to make that transition smooth,” Pruden said.
Other than price, loaners and software, fees were another issue for the new contract. The $50 teacher fee and $100 student deductible for damage were eliminated, although the $50 student fee will remain.
Lloyd Brown, director of technology for Henrico schools, explained the features of the new Dell Inspiron 600M laptop. The screen is 14 inches compared to the iBook’s 12-inch screen. It has two USB ports and a track pad for moving the mouse. The Dells will utilize a Windows XP operating system.
Brown also addressed the question of security — how to prevent students from accessing inappropriate web sites. First of all, he said, “The type of laptop does not have anything to do with security — it’s your filters. Therefore, security will be a challenge with any product.”
He said the school division would continue to maintain the most up-to-date filters and security measures.
from: <http://www.henrico.k12.va.us/Announcements/Dell/index.htm>
I say everyone email their Superintendant, board, and tech director and correct the fallacies above.
1. Zero virus for Mac OS X, period, no filter required
2. Office runs better on the Mac than on a Dell.
3. Teachers can continue to run Appleworks, because it also runs on windows.
4. How much does your district intend to pay for antivirus/antispyware?
5. How much did Dell bribe you, or are you really just this stupid? Our kids are being educated by morons..
FACTwatch should change their site to be readable. Did anyone enjoy reading the whole article with the white text on a grey background? …..Pathetic.
It’s all about money. The school board don’t care about the child future. When you can save 4 million, that look real good on your next election. Four years for now, we see who talking what then. I feel sad for the children future. You see Dell is all about the money, that why they sell the junk that they sell so cheap. They know they can make their money off the support. They are not going to do it for free. So in the long run you get what you pay for. Just remember the car called YUGO
You should read the last two posts here:
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/5639/
I don’t know if these are legit students or not. But one wonders what issues did crop up with the iBooks. From the posts, it does look like hardware durability. I peronally wonder if these kids are supposedly as “rich” as they say, then taking care of something like an iBook the school gives them (which is less than what their parents provide) isn’t a priority. If you treat anything like crap it will break.
You can read directly from Henrico County’s website:
http://www.henrico.k12.va.us/Announcements/Dell/index.htm
http://www.henrico.k12.va.us/iBook/
There are details about the Dell laptop:(http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspn_600m?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs)
No details about what Apple proposed this time.
The Henrico quote about the bigger screen is off base – the Dell screen offers 1024/768 resolution. The same number of pixels as both of the iBook displays. Hey, at least you get a bigger computer….
One big thing in Dell’s favor was the usage of MS Office. Perhaps Apple decided to stay with AppleWorks and not ammend the proposal to include Office? Or did Apple get forced to include Office and the “larger” screen and consequently get priced out?
I agree completely with the writer, but c’mon — this site has no credibility. It is a one page site — just go to factwatch.com, and there’s nothing there except this one article. I’m all for exposing the stupidity of Henrico County, but let’s go for some real journalism.
Magic Word is “all” — as in “is this all there is?”
There goes another generation of younger ones losing their future by limiting their capabilities to what a De *cough* ll can do..
“I HATE DELL”
Uhm, nothing wrong with wanting to save money.. Mac users have been screaming ‘TCO’ for years…
“I’m glad that our students will now have the business world’s computer of choice.”
These kids are in school. How long before they will be in the business world? 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?
And what will be the business world’s computer of choice then (platform you should have said actually)?
10 years ago Win95 hadn’t been released. 10 years prior to that the Mac was only 1 year old. 10 years prior to that no one had heard of a personal computer.
A lot changes in 10 years. A rule of thumb in computer purchasing is buy for today, what you need today. What did they need today? MS Office, 14″ screens, laptops. They chose Dell, whose tender met that requirement, it sounds like Apple’s didn’t (altho they should have. Maybe the tender wasn’t clear)
“this site has no credibility” and “let’s go for some real journalism”
One article or 100, it’s an opinion site. Opinion doesn’t need credibility else no one would be allowed to have one! Everyone has to start their blog somewhere.
What is real journalism?? I avoid the papers and TV news as much as possible because it is so biased. It always makes me laugh how one incident can be reported so differently by “real” journalists.
It was a good read because it did question some of the weak arguments Henrico staff, board and students gave. Sure it didn’t look at the positives of buying the Dells, but that wasn’t the point of the article. Real journalists don’t cover every aspect of a story either.
I’ve worked for the “Business world” they like Windows because it guaranties them employment. If they had to switch to Macs some would have to learn something ne, the rest would loose thier jobs, woops I think that’s supposed to be secret.
Anyway, a year ago, my wife was given one of these Dell Inspiron 600’s by her company. She tried to play a DVD, but the thing only has a CD player. She’s had it rebuilt twice because of system errors. The IT department took the machine for a week each time.
I have a friend that uses a Win PC at work. For two days the entire company (except for about 50 Macintosh users) were not allowed to access the network due to a virus that was infecting anything Windows.
So far the best reason I’ve seen for owning a Windows PC is more of your friends have them so you can “share” software with these other people. After all stealing is fun ! and it’s not really stealing after all.
One of our local school systems moved from Macs to Windows PC’s. It cost nearly twice as much to keep the windows systems up and running. No one would admit this had been a mistake so they refused to even listen to the idea of allowing Macs back into the schools.
I’ve never been a follower, thus avoiding the Lemming thing. I’ve used Mac and Windows machines. I’ve repaired both Macintoshes and Windows machines and I’m still convinced MS has a lot more stealing to do to make the windows experience as good as the Mac experience.
you know….
They will be singing a different tune this time next year in Henrico.
And to Not A News Source…
Give me 1 thing, 1 thing in that article that was untrue, or an exaggeration.. save for the final paragraph, which, was an intentional overstatement as admitted by the author…