“In a stunning change of course, Henrico County’s School Board voted last night to distribute Dell computers to every high school student and teacher next year,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. “The unanimous vote to broker a deal with Dell Inc. represents a victory for the Round Rock, Texas-based company in its battle with Apple Computers Inc. for superiority in the fast-growing education technology market.”
“Four years ago, Apple and Henrico struck a deal that drew national attention for being one of the first initiatives to give every middle and high school student a laptop,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: These people are about to learn a bunch of important lessons. Bad decisions have consequences. Too bad for the students, but they’ll be learning something, too. What a step backwards! So, now Henrico will have Windows XP where they could’ve had Mac OS X Tiger. Think about that for a moment. Wow. It’s not the hardware, Henrico folks. All personal computers and operating systems are not the same. Oh, never mind, you’ll learn soon enough. Wonder if we’ll ever know if things are going badly for Henrico or will it just be swept under the rug?
Apple’s “Profile in Success – Henrico County Public Schools” webpages are currently still online here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Cobb County school board approves Apple Mac plan; could eventually distribute 63,000 iBooks – 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
Fred,
Ohh I agree, that at least Dell and Microsoft would make some effort to guarantee a favorable showing in the process by donating anti-virus software, support time, spyware, etc. But, I’m not certain in the Henrico Board of Directors have the ability to cover their asses in this situation; and anything that Dell or Microsoft does can be documented.
You’re obviously not going to get the information at the annual school report; but an independent report even if it was funded by Apple (yes some might say that’s an oxymoron but there are a number of evaluation centers and or consultants, who demand objectivity, regardless of who funded the research).
Also Greg,
I agree with Michael, I’ve yet to see a Mac user become totally incompetent, just because someone stuck them in front of a PC. Your argument, though widely use, is just a terribly, terribly argument. One it assumes that the computers kids will be using today, are the same computers that they will be using 10 years from now. Admittedly it is taking Microsoft a longtime to get Longhorn out the door, but even I’d bet that there will be something different 5-10 years from now.
The argument also just makes students out to be the worlds biggest idiots. Come on, by the time these kids are adults, they will be best served by having experience on multiple operating systems, learning and understanding the basic concepts of OS navigation, and application usage. Whether its Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Unix, or some other OS, most of today’s kids will have come across them in some situation or another at least once or twice.
Sure there are differences between the OS, mostly at levels that the average user never even thinks about. When your talking about I can use Microsoft Office products (or better yet, I can use any Word Process given 10 minutes to play around in it), then your talking about what skills a student needs for basic business. The business world is pretty basic in computational tasks run by day to day workers– email, word processing, spreadsheets, web browsing, maybe a database, and any number (including zero), of custom applications specific to that work place. Sure their are analyst, accountants, and other specialists, but your average office worker types (and not even that well).
I’d rather you teach my kids how to critical and creative thought processes, core concepts, and get them willing to explore new ideas and technologies, than teach them how to write their history report in Microsoft Office. Maybe I’m giving them too much benefit, but that I believe the can figure out themselves.
Take heart, this will be the new test site to show the world HOW NOT to roll out equipment to students.
This is a beautiful case study for Apple waiting to happen. All they have to do is keep track of all the problems from disgruntled students and the massive IT bills and hawk that around to every other school district.
I work in Henrico. I was a teacher and now I do tech support. I am sick. This is a disaster. The teachers, students and tech support are all centered and trained on Macs. A great deal of work was created on Mac only software. I didn’t even take the talk of switching seriously because I saw so many huge problems. You can always underestimate people’s stupidity, I guess.
What a sad day.
I would love to see a short documentary on the two years of computer use. That would be a great school project.
A new mac user,
Hmmm, but you’ve used a Mac for over 10 years???
I can walk into any office building and there is a 100% chance that there are people using PC’s. There is an extremely small chance that Macs are being used.
That is the truth and no matter how much you hate that it still doesn’t change the truth that the kids are better prepared for the business world if they are familiar with the PC.
To the morons that want to bring up windows 3.1 or win98, when you got out of school that was being used in business at that point. You then migrated to the latest OS as it was made available.
Can’t you guys come up with a legitimate argument for the Mac? Apple has tried the school approach for years and it hasn’t changed anything, They have to cut margins to entice the business world, something they are unwilling to do. Until they do that they are going to continue to loose these battles. They have the product but they are going to have to make it priced right to get business to fork out the bucks.
1 On the local paper’s website, the page is sponsored by ECPI Technical College pimping IT/Networking & Security Management (Windows 2003 Server is in larger print and is highlighted). The schools’ (ECPI) website has a “best viewed with IE” logo on it. I guess the new grads will have jobs at least.
2 All the little Babbit suburban clone drones who so desperately wanted their children to learn Windows are getting ready to get a REAL education– and probably a tax increase. Hiring all those new tech support people should keep taxes up for a season.
3 They say you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him/her drink. Henrico County is full of people who equate Gap Brands ( Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic ) with style, MTV Brands (MTV, M2,VH1,BET,CMT) with music and Wal-Mart with value. You know– Bush Country. People who quietly get their daughters abortions while voting against it and protesting it.
“Mildred, we cannot let the family know our kids are using Macs. Everybody will think that our son is a liberal or gay!”
Word of the day- Babbit
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
via OmniWeb on Mac OS 10.3.9 for the last time:
“Middle American, Philistine, anal character, arriviste, boeotian,
boob, boor, bounder, bourgeois, burgher, cad, churl, clown,
compulsive character, conformer, conformist, conventionalist,
epicier, formalist, groundling, guttersnipe, hooligan,
ill-bred fellow, looby, lout, low fellow, methodologist,
middle-class type, middlebrow, model child, mucker, nouveau riche,
organization man, parrot, parvenu, peasant, pedant, perfectionist,
plastic person, precisian, precisianist, ribald, rough, roughneck,
rowdy, ruffian, sheep, square, teenybopper, trimmer, upstart,
vulgarian, vulgarist, yes-man, yokel”
And the Henrico County COSTS are just starting… You can hear MS, Dell, Norton all wringing their hands.
Forget the costs of switching -after all we aim to make people endure those costs in reverse- I’m thinking downtime, lost productivity, employing servicing staff etc etc.
Please Apple pay a TV production company to document this execise in failure!
I hope they have a lot of IT support and I’m not talking about Dells piss poor support from a 3rd world country. They need people on site through out the school day every day. I’m a Desktop Support Technician working for a Silicon Valley company supporting PC’s which happens to be Dell. I have first hand knowledge of how these things work and fail! Viruses and spyware are going to get these poor kids and instead of doing there homework they will be calling tech support.
To bad for them.
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Greg,
Your analogy holds little water. Just 25 years ago, every company had typewriters. Does anybody have them now? Tools change. An education transcends the tools.
If you want an education, you get the best tools to support that education.
If you want training, go to a vocational school.
So, do you want to train Henrico County student on Windows? Or do you want to provide them with the best tools available to educate them?
If you think Windows provide the best tool towards an education, then Henrico made the best choice.
It just goes to show why American Education is such a joke. I don’t know why anyone makes the assumption that people on a school board are qualified to do anything. They are just as stupid, and ignorant about technology, as most other people. (This may sound arrogant, but I think that it is a given that people on a board such as this are most likely better educated than average, and definitely more technologically experienced)
UInfortunately, the educational system in this country is TOTALLY about politics. The teachers unions care about themselves and not educating the kids. On top of that, the school boards are elected, and have to keep both thhe unions and the voters happpy. In this case, I think that there was too much pressure from (1) ignorant parents that believe the “kids need to learn Windows because that’s what business uses” arguement, and (2) voters who are fed up with ever increasing school taxes.
If Dell was significantly cheaper, it is unrealistic to think that the school board can give their constituents a computer science course so that they can understand TCO arguements. Most of these people have had 12:00 flashing on their VCRs for the last 15 years and still can’t figure out what remote goes with what.
Also, the other sad fact is that the current board probably won’t be there when the total cost is ever figured out. Even if they are, they can just pass the buck and blame any problems on Dell for implementation.
In any case, this decision was more about politics than it was about technology or education.
Personally, I am of the belief that the school really shouldn’t be buying the kids laptops anyway. I’d be pissed if my district did and I had to pay for it. I’d rather spend the money myself and buy the best product, and also be able to keep it.
Force the school to put all classwork and school materials into platform agnostic formats (HTML, PDF, etc.) or use applications that are available on MAC and Windows. Let the parents worry about support costs and then see what decision they make.
I hope to God that these stupid programs are goone by the time my kids get older.
Greg,
The Windows monopoly <-> user relationship is an abusive one and continues mainly because it is considered “normal.”
In effect, you’re saying that it’s good to abuse kids because they will be abused as adults.
End the cycle when and where you can.
“They will learn the windows OS and also the shortcomings of it. By learning in a non critical environment they will be better prepared for the business world.”
Giving middle school or high school students windows laptops so they can learn “windows shortcomings” is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Do you realize how different the operating systems will be in 5-10 years when those students actually have jobs?
“Hopefully when their computers mess up the school will take the time to teach the students how to repair their own machines.”
Yes, thats a great idea. Lets give hundreds of students administrative rights, and they can spend hours at home trying to fix their POS instead of doing homework. GOOD CALL
Me,
The story is…?
Greg, I’ll give you a legitimate argument: The computers are brought into the schools to assist the students in learning in ALL subjects. They were not brought into the schools to learn computers, troubleshooting, etc. These are high school students, and the computers should be used as tools to learn. If these tools become corrupted with viruses, spyware, etc., the tools will be ineffective.
Operating systems change over the course of a few years. Very few of those high school students using WinXP will be using WinXP in the business world. Yes, fewer of them will be using Mac OS X 10.4. However, no matter which computer they get, they’ll have computer experience by the time they get to the “real world”, and that’s what matters.
If they want to take a class to learn the inner workings of the computer (troubleshooting hardware conflicts, viruses, malware, etc.) then that’s fine. But they should not be forced into dealing with these on a daily basis any more than we should inflict medical students with the flu just so they can experience what it’s like in the “real world”.
MW: “Now”, as in “Now the Henrico students are fscked!”
I hope Fred Morton V goes to public school.
Honestly, how hard is it to learn how to use Windows from OS X? This is not rocket science. On top of that, Microsoft Office, the most used productivity suite in the world is about the same on BOTH platforms.
So please Greg, tell me again where your argument holds water? We’re not asking people to learn how to troubleshoot Windows or etc. That’s IT’s job. We’re asking people to work, and whether on Windows or OS X, it’s not that hard to learn how to use the most widely available tools.
I can walk into any office building and there is a 100% chance that there are people using PC’s. There is an extremely small chance that Macs are being used.
Greg,
Depends on your industry profession. I can walk into any creative industry office and most if not ALL machines will be Mac’s. Just a simple fact. I can walk into any photographers studio and most will be all Mac. I can walk into a scientific research facitlity and most will be UNIX with Mac’s incorporated into the network (since they are migrating….others have been using Mac’s since OSX was born)
I can walk into an office (advertising agency) and most are using Mac’s. I can walk into an architects office. Most are using UNIX with Mac’s being migrated.
You are ill informed.
“…full of people who equate Gap Brands ( Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic ) with style, MTV Brands (MTV, M2,VH1,BET,CMT) with music and Wal-Mart with value. You know– Bush Country. People who quietly get their daughters abortions while voting against it and protesting it.”
“A Couple of Telling Observations”, indeed… so easy, isn’t it? To believe bulls**t about people you don’t know? Anonymous posts
are safe for you, aren’t they? That way, you can be whomever, and nobody can see the little logos on the shirts your mom bought you, or your little P2P’d collection of complaint rock from Lilith Fair. Stop ragging on people you don’t know. You sound like an idiot.
did i miss it or did the people who suddenly (apparently) made this decision give a reason?
“…We’re not asking people to learn how to troubleshoot Windows”
actually, that’s exactly what students need to learn how to do. I switched in 2001 and would never go back, but many of the daily Windows problems I had to fix while on the dark side were not version-specific. Also, not every business that uses computers has an IT dept., and small business employers are going to want people who know how to maintain their own crappy Dells without calling for a geek. Greg has a point here…
Greg, what about the students that don’t plan to go into business? What about the ones who would like to be graphic artists. Have you considered their needs? Don’t assume all these kids are going to become office drones.
I live in bush country, voted for bush and would never use a dell or a Windows running machine. My dad has voted republican forever and still takes his powerbook to work everyday and uses his dell pc the company gave him as a paperweight….in fact…my father, a bush country republican, has gotten 5 of his co-workers to switch to a mac….one even bought my old ibook. My political beliefs don’t decide my computer purchase.
This is Apple’s fault… they had this contract, maintained it, and had every chance to make sure it was continued. If Dell waslooking to steal the contract away, then Apple should have known it and done something about it. In any business, if you lose a contract to the competition, it’s your own fault.
Ironically, this news is breaking on the same day that Cobb County, GA announced that they’ve officially approved their own deal with Apple:
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/cobb/0405/29laptops.html
Now, explain this one to me: Less than a month ago, Apple essentially had the Henrico renewal deal locked up by most accounts. Today we find that the board voted UNANIMOUSLY to go with Dell??
I can conceive of a 5:4 vote (or whatever, but UNANIMOUS? After the success of the iBook program over the past several years? On the very day Apple is launching Tiger?
I can only think of two possibilities: Either some sort of payoff, or else someone at Apple *SERIOUSLY* offended the Henrico board in some way (and is about to get canned). Any other possibilities come to mind?
Should be fascinating to hear these guys explain themselves at the press conference which is apparently going on this morning.
We’ll know if the school has more IT support costs, because it will be clearly indicated in the school’s annual financial reports.
If Dell picks up these costs themselves, then it may not be a great deal for Dell in the end.