“By giving students new laptops almost six months early, Greene County Schools is saving more than $1 million in computer costs,” Michael Abernethy reports for The Kinston Free Press (North Carolina, USA). “At a special meeting held Monday night at the Greene County Board of Commissioners meeting, the Greene County Board of Education voted to refinance its lease from Apple Computers. The school system will sell its 2,041 existing laptops [prior] to Macworld before the company announces its new product lines Jan. 9, 2006.”
“The change comes at no additional cost to parents. The AppleCare Warranty originally purchased two and-a-half years ago is still good until the summer of 2007,” Abernethy reports. “The computers’ unusually high trade-in value – estimated to bring almost $450,000 to the schools – combined with existing wear and tear on the original laptops made it a good time for the school system to refinance, said Superintendent Steve Mazingo. The threat of bugs in newer-model computers the schools would have to purchase later in the year also made Greene County Schools move early to refresh laptops. The transition should happen quickly but smoothly. The new computers will be readied for use by Apple over the holiday break. The familiar software will also make the trade easy for students and teachers to use in the classroom after the switch.”
Abernethy reports, “Mazingo praised the results of the county’s two- and-a-half-year-old laptop program as a breakthrough. ‘Our test scores are up and more kids are staying in school,’ Mazingo said. ‘Now, we’re looked at with respect – because of 21st-century teaching and learning.’ Greene County Schools still had $1.6 million left to pay in its lease with Apple, with two more years of $800,000 payments. The renegotiated deal adds nearly $1.6 million to that but also saves the system almost as much, said Harvey Gay, Greene County Schools finance officer.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This is excellent confirmation of the rumors of new Intel-based iBooks coming from Apple at Macworld Expo. Sometimes reports about Apple that come from oblique angles contain the most useful information. The reporter and the superintendent obviously don’t grasp the secrecy that surrounds Apple’s hardware announcements; they don’t seem to know they’re not supposed to tell certain things. Abernethy also doesn’t seem to recognize the scoop he really has in his hands, but we do. To us, it seems pretty clear that Greene County Schools officials were told by their Apple rep(s) that new Intel-based iBooks were coming at Macworld – first generation hardware that may “contain bugs” initially – and offered the latest current PowerPC iBooks if they upgraded right now, before Apple “announces its new product lines Jan. 9, 2006.” Apple also gets to whittle down iBook G4 inventory by another 2,000 or so units. So, there you go, all tied up nicely with a bow.
FYI: The iBook went from G3 to G4 processors in October 2003, right around the time Greene County Schools first added Apple iBooks to their school system. Most likely the iBooks that Greene County Schools are upgrading are iBook G4 models running somewhere between 800MHz -1GHz, but they could also be previous gen 800/900 MHz G3-based iBooks. Greene County Schools did not immediately respond to our inquiry about which iBook model(s) they are currently using.
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the heat is on!
The threat of bugs in newer-model computers the schools would have to purchase later in the year also made Greene County Schools move early to refresh laptops
It appears to me that they have instead locked in what may be the last of the current iBooks rather than the first of the new (?) iBooks. Which makes sense – I know I won’t be rushing to buy Intel Macs until I hear how the well Rosetta works with older software. Tt’s called not being caught on the bleeding edge.
Ooopa! I didnt read MDN’s take quite closely enough. Sorry!
FWIW, it appears they value the used iBooks at just over $220. It’s not clear which older iBook models they will be trading in, but the least expensive used iBook offered by PowerMax (a MDN advertiser) is $379 for a white G3 iBook (? their description). Granted that’s retail & certified, but this school district could probably get more than $220.
Just so they don’t repeat the Henrico disaster!
I’m holding off buying an Intel Mac until AT LEAST the third revision.
By then, all the creases will be ironed out.
MDN does not know jack. Stick with iPod news cause you idiots are better at it.
Well I for one am happy to see any school get Apple’s computers, iMacs, PowerBooks, iBooks, PowerMacs. The schools that I know that have them, love their Apples; they’re trouble free if set up properly and schools spend a lot of money sometimes to fix things that “Goober Tech Support” can’t fix or messed up.
Maintenance at the schools by school personnel are not very good for the most part.
Apple should go WAY out of their way to give all schools great deals on hardware and support.
I suppose that there will be some teething problems with the shift in the chip architecture, but that’s to be expected with such a big change.
Once you work with the hardware and software on the front-line support, you see that Apple has got it’s act together.
That’s been my experience anyway.
Stevie-Poo said Intel Macs would be shipping by the middle of the year. The school officials and sales reps could just be taking that comment at face value and acting on it. Six months from now is the middle of the year.
Do you really think sales knows every little thing that’s going on in R&D? From everything we’ve heard before, it sounds like the sales force knows about new announcements as late as possible…sometimes not until they’re actually announced.
iDon’t–
ExLax. Seriously.
The other advantage to Apple in this move is to clear that many G4 iBooks out of the pipeline in order to get the inventory down prior to the Intel iBook release. That’s where the big discount comes from that allowed Greene County to score the big savings. That’s probably the main reason that Apple would risk even mentioning the potential for bugs in the new machines (and I’m sure Apple didn’t figure on Greene County being so open about their reasoning).
The downside is that if there are decreases in new made-for-Intel software behavior (iLife ’06?) on the old G4 chips in the next 2-3 years, Greene County will be stuck with legacy performance. None of us yet knows how much of a performance hit Rosetta will create in older machines.
MDN,
Thanks for the present. Merry Christmas to you too.
MaWo: ‘class’. As in, “When the Greene County students have to go back to theirs, they’ll be met with brand-spankin’ new iBooks.”
iDon’t’s mother knows me. She stuck with my iPod.
How does this constitute confirmation?
Confirmation can only come from Apple. Not from a customer who could possibly be getting their info here from MDN or from ThinkSecret and use that info to convince their parents not to switch to Dell.
The quote is, “The threat of bugs in newer-model computers the schools would have to purchase later in the year also made Greene County Schools move early to refresh laptops.”
This strongly implies they are NOT going to go with Intel based computers. It clearly states that if they waited until the traditional school buying period they would be buying “newer-model computers” which carry a “threat of bugs”.
This would strongly imply to me that either
1) MWSF will see the introduction of the very last PPC base iBooks, or
2) the school is going with the current version and not waiting until late spring/summer to get the first Intel based systems.
It’s more likely 1) than 2).
Shadowself,
“The school system will sell its 2,041 existing laptops [prior] to Macworld before the company announces its new product lines Jan. 9, 2006. The threat of bugs in newer-model computers the schools would have to purchase later in the year also made Greene County Schools move early to refresh laptops.”
If the Macworld iBooks are to be the last of the PowerPC iBooks, then why wouldn’t Greene County buy them? Why do they have to buy before Apple’s announcement of “new product lines” at Macworld?
Between this deal and the firesales lately at Amazon on current iBooks, there is little doubt that new Intel iBooks will be announced at MWSF next month.
Speed-bumped iBook G4’s are not “new product lines” that require early action by entire Mac-based school systems. If the “new” iBooks are to be the last of the PowerPC-based iBooks, why wouldn’t Greene buy those instead of buying the current iBook model? After all, they’re going to have these iBooks for 3 years – they’d want the latest PowerPC models they can get.
This report certainly does seem to confirm Intel-based iBooks will be announced at Macworld.
MDN MW: “ten” – as in, “Mac OS X”
The last PowerPC iBooks are the ones currently available. New Intel-based widescreen “ViiV” iBooks will debut at Macworld with immediate availability. And it won’t be just Intel-based iBooks, either.
Waiting for the third or later incarnations of Macs with Intel chips sounds overly cautious to me….a belt and braces accountant’s approach to life?
I’ll want to be trying these babies as soon as they are on the shelves.. it’s far too exciting to miss! These computers will be the future of personal computing… and anyway, in my experience Apple first offerings are the equivalent of MS product version 2.0+.
Or they could just be making the decision that if they planned to upgrade at any time in, say, the next year then with the possibility of intel’s at some point they would rather use tried and tested powerpc models. That in combination with the attractive re-sale price of their current machines, means now is as good a time as any to upgrade.
MDN… you guys are starting to analyze like Enderle.
Grrrilla wrote:
> The downside is that if there are decreases in new made-for-Intel
> software behavior (iLife ’06?) on the old G4 chips in the next 2-3 years,
> Greene County will be stuck with legacy performance. None of us yet
> knows how much of a performance hit Rosetta will create in older
> machines.
Rosetta won’t have any performance hit in older machines, because Rosetta will only run on Intel Macs. Software in the next 2-3 years will be made for both Intel and PPC (like the fat binaries of yore), meaning that *new* software will run natively on both Intel and PPC Macs, but *old* software will have to run in a PPC emulator (Rosetta) on the new machines.
Don’t worry MDN, this is rock solid analysis. I’m sure that schoolboards like this have some insider information.
I bet no new iBooks at MacWorld. I dont have anything to base my assertion on except that I subscribe to the law of contrary public opnion. If everyone says one thing, I say bet the other way.
Hammer– like when everyone was talking about a new, headless mini Mac? That was the buzz this time last year. That proved out. Or am I being contrary?
Great bit of info – good job MDN!
The school district was encouraged to go with the last-best PPC iBook because of ‘possible bugs’ with the new model, but I wouldn’t take that to mean a total wreck for a Macintel iBook product launch. I suspect the potential for problems lies with Rossetta. Academia will be stuck using PPC versions of OSX apps for longer than most. Their purchasing cycles are longer, the money they have to spend is tight (so, no wholesale transition is likely in any event), plus the software they use is generally developed for textbooks, and the book publishing houses are notorious for not upgrading the specs for their apps. Couple those factors with any possible glitches with Rossetta (and there will certainly be some) multiplied by hundreds of students, and its no wonder Apple would encourage them to hold off on x86 if they can. They’d have a lot of P.O.’d institutional buyers otherwise.