“Wilkes University announced yesterday that it has pulled the plug on PCs in favor of Macs, saying the move — which actually began last year — will save the Pennsylvania liberal arts college more than $150,000 while still letting students and faculty continue to run Windows applications,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld.
“Touted as one of the first colleges to mandate a campuswide shift from Windows PCs to Macs, the Wilkes-Barre, Pa., school wasn’t a bastion of all things Apple before the decision, said Scott Byers, vice president for finance and the head of campus IT. Macs, in fact, were a minority,” Keizer reports.
Keizer reports, “Rather than take bids from the usual PC suspects (Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co.) as well as Macs, Wilkes decided to go all-Apple because the new Intel-based models and the BootCamp dual-boot software… would let the school reduce the number of machines campuswide… ‘We’ll be able to reduce the number by about 250’ across the campus, said Byers.”
Keizer reports, “The school, which enrolls about 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students, will reduce its inventory from nearly 1,700 computers to around 1,450 after the changeover… He also cited the additional security of Mac OS X, schoolwide access to Apple’s iLife suite, and Apple’s operating system itself as side benefits. ‘It is, well, the superior OS, isn’t it?’ said Byers, who before the switch was a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user.”
Keizer continues, “Although the $1.4 million three-year switch — which started last year with the purchase of approximately 500 Macs — means Wilkes is all-Apple, students are free to choose any operating system, said Byers. ‘There’s no Mac mandate.’ Most of them pick one anyway: ‘This generation seems to prefer Macs,’ he added.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Embrace and extinguish. 
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This is excellent news! Hopefully more schools will follow.
heh
Switching to a all Macs.
They could call it The Wilkes-Barre syndrome.
Shouldn’t the headline say Dump ON Windows, with a picture of a Zune docked to a Dell? Well, maybe not.
MW:idea
> He also cited the additional security of Mac OS X, schoolwide access to Apple’s iLife suite, and Apple’s operating system itself as side benefits.
Those are the “side” benefits? I think those are the MAIN benefits. The fact that Macs can run Windows is the side benefit (if you can call being about to run Windows a “benefit”).
He does point out that most of the students use Macs anyway. I think that that is the key here.
A lot of older people are not ever going to be open to the change but as they retire and are repaced by youger folks, those younger folks will already be Mac users.
Wow, that’s great news. I’m hoping this movement will start snowballing.
The “main” benefit for Wilkes will be saving $150K because they can buy fewer computers, according to their Finance/IT VP. Not how I pick my computer, but so what? If Apple can be the less expensive option, it will catch on a LOT faster!
GO APPLE!
@Big AL
Haha. Best comment I have seen on here in a long while. Tres witty…
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What’s going to happen is..
In a all Mac enviroment, the Windows Macs will have software and OS problems and the Mac OS X Mac’s will not.
The hardware failure rate is considerably less for Apple hardware than it is for any cheap PC box assembler.
It’s because Apple makes sure it “just works” and not a cludgen of mixed hardware and software conflicts that one gets on the PC Windows side.
Also the IT cost will be considerably higher mostly for the poor fools who have to use Windows.
This is going to show itself in the long run and demonstate once and for all which is the superior OS company. The most cost effective choice.
“‘This generation seems to prefer Macs,’ he added.”
To me this is the biggest statement he made. These trends take years to begin and don’t just fall off. It began with OS X in 2001 and has gathered steam until today. It is this desire that will continue to drive up Mac sales and market share for years to come.
The road is rocky, but it won’t be rocky long…Ahhh
this road is rocky, won’t be rocky long…Aaa
‘nother man
stole your Daddy’s woman and gone…’
“This generation seems to prefer Macs,’ he added.”
Like I said, the war is already over. There is no way that 95% (or even 50%) of today’s kids are gonna grow up to be PC-using sheep like their parents. No way!
Joe Blow:
I’m a old guy and Doze blows.
Hopefully more schools will follow. That had huge potential for Apple and of course AAPL!
“> He also cited the additional security of Mac OS X, schoolwide access to Apple’s iLife suite, and Apple’s operating system itself as side benefits.
Those are the “side” benefits? I think those are the MAIN benefits. The fact that Macs can run Windows is the side benefit (if you can call being about to run Windows a “benefit”).”
That’s the way it is in entrenched Windows environments. They are kind of clueless about the inherit benefits of working on Macs. But I’ll accept is decision process if that’s what it takes to go Mac!
Here in Chester (UK) My kids Primary and High schools are infected with windows crap, dirt cheap to buy, high cost to run but spread over three or more years.
Someone must be blind or getting a big backhander to buy this shite.
My kids know its crap too.
One day, one day and it’ll be the kids that drive it.
Forgot to say . . . iTunes UK has the new rednoseday song and vid up now, buy it and help thanks, it’s fookin’ brill.
…..I remember a marauding group of white-collar criminals …they squeezed the planet between their palms while dripping their saliva over North America and Eurasia.
They owned the world …for them there were no rules, no law, …only greed, avarice and domination whatever the price. There were thefts, lies, ….there was self-aggrandizing and most importantly …ownership.
They were the mammals …members of my own variety ..the frontal lobes, abstractions, ideals ..we were the group that was supposed to take the high road.
I’m ashamed to call myself a mammal. I’d prefer to think of them as rats in mammals clothing. I will not subsidize these mammals ..I will not use their code on my computer …I will not support the code of those who support them. They have employed tactics the thought of which makes my ass fuse burn …but I will not explode. I’ll turn my back on their every endeavor.
“I’ll be back in the iLife again . . .”
Now the real wow starts. Turtle Boy and Fester’s Freak Show is collapsing.
anti-creative cretin: I have GOT to party with you, cowboy.
Whoa.
Good to see an institution breaking free of the MS groupthink.
MDN’s take
Embrace and extinguish
Did it for our family, being able to run windows was the security I needed to make the switch, that was last July.
soon realized I prefer the Mac MS office better (waiting for spredsheet in iWork), and tho I prefer Picasa, have gotten use to iPhoto with a few plug ins.
Haven’t used windows in months, and do not plan on.
Ok, I’m getting ready to duck, but in the early 90’s with Windows being compared as a bad copy of Apple’s System 6.x these same embrace and extinguish arguments, and young people as they grew up replacing other systems for mac..
It’s all been said before. Waiting to see it. Fingers Crossed, but PLEASE stop the fecking constant Embrace and Distinguish plugs. Anyone spouting that, like MDN hammers home in every other article, constantly sounds like a idiot. MDN sounds like a radical Muslim website, just the religion here is the Mac (and I’ve been an avid Mac owner since ’89).
“…but PLEASE stop the fecking constant Embrace and Distinguish plugs…
Actually that was Microsoft’s idea, MDN is just… (well there is a word for it…)
“Embrace, extend and extinguish,”also known as “Embrace, extend, and exterminate,” is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice alleged was used internally by Microsoft to describe their strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.
The strategy and phrase “embrace and extend” were first described in a 1996 New York Times article entitled “Microsoft Trying to Dominate the Internet,” in which John Markoff said,
“Rather than merely embrace and extend the Internet, the company’s critics now fear, Microsoft intends to engulf it.” The phrase was also reported to have appeared in a motivational song by an anonymous Microsoft employee, and in an interview of Steve Ballmer by the New York Times.
The more widely used variation, “embrace, extend and extinguish,” was first introduced in the United States v. Microsoft antitrust trial when the vice president of Intel, Steven McGeady, testified that Microsoft vice president Paul Maritz used the phrase in a 1995 meeting with Intel to describe Microsoft’s strategy toward Netscape, Java, and the Internet.
In this context, the phrase means to highlight the final phase of Microsoft’s strategy as raised by McGeady, which was to drive customers away from smaller competitors.
This is why it’s very important for Mac users not to fund/aid the Redmond beast. It just hurts Mac users in the long run.