“CEO Steven P. Jobs and his troops have clearly been on a college roll. In each of the past three quarters, Apple has posted 40% increases in year-over-year sales for this segment,” Alex Salkever writes for BusinessWeek. “During the first half of its current fiscal year, Apple posted an 18% bump in year-over-year education sales. And most of that has come from higher education, since the K-12 market has remained almost flat for Apple. Clearly the Mac is climbing the Ivory Tower. “
“What’s behind the college revival? Credit Apple’s one-two laptop punch — the lower-end iBook and the more powerful PowerBook, which are packing a wallop. ‘They have the right products at the right time,’ says Kenneth C. Green, director of the Campus Computing Project, an ongoing industry-funded study that examines how computing is used in higher education,” Salkever writes.
“Then there’s the music factor. Apple’s iTunes software, which comes as a free download for either PCs or Macs, has become the de facto standard for managing digital tunes on the desktop,” Salkever writes. “That, plus the runaway success of Apple’s iPod music player, could be fueling a slow but steady increase in Apple customers. ‘My sense is that music and the iPod are influencing purchasing decisions,’ says analyst Charles Wolf of Needham & Co.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Boy, BusinessWeek is really pulling out all the stops to cover Apple in-depth lately! It’s good to see the interest in the Macintosh and people waking up to what we’ve all known for years: get a Mac and your computing life will be easier, less stressful, more productive, and just plain fun!