“The company is said to be abandoning a previous volume licensing scheme, which allowed institutions to buy Mac OS X at costs of $39 to $59 per copy, depending the amount of licenses ordered,” MacNN reports.
“Instead, schools must now pay for annual license renewals,” MacNN reports. “Apple is also said to be dropping cheaper site licenses for its iLife and iWork suites. Schools must as a result acquire upgrades in unison with Mac OS X updates, or pay normal retail prices.”
Full article here.
According to Apple:
The new Apple Education Licensing Program makes it easier to keep your school’s Apple software current and compliant. Coverage is purchased annually, keeping costs consistent year after year, and the new bundle structure allows you to manage against a single expiration date. Each license renewal provides one year of coverage, including any new releases that may become available during the year. And with the new program, you can even include at-home licenses for faculty and staff in your total count.
Apple software can be distributed through your school’s secured network or physical media kits—the choice is yours. A one-time enrollment fee (10 percent of the annual purchase price) is required the first year your school or district enrolls in the program. If you enroll before December 13, 2009, Apple will waive the enrollment fee.
Apple’s Educational Licensing Program software costs can be found here.
I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.
I keep wishing my mom’s school would realize that downloading OpenOffice for free is better for the school district’s budget than spending $60,000 on MS Office 2007 licenses.
As taxpayers, shouldn’t we be able to insist that they at least *look* at the free open-source options everybody knows about?
@ Gabriel
Wishful thinking there, Taxpayers never get a say on any government spending.
Obama-Care for example! 40+ Trillion for the first year and that doesn’t even cover the 800+ Billion capital expenditure start-up costs for a new government agency. Then there is the oops we pay for this but need this and this building is to small so we need to rent space in the new expensive office building so we need to spend another 800+ Billion is added Capital expenditures post start-up.
Sounds similar to Microsoft licensing.
@Demon: Take your political propaganda elsewhere, please.
“@Demon: Take your political propaganda elsewhere, please.”
Truth is not political, it is just truth.
@Demon
Dont forget the.. we need this.. so we will allow you to have it if you give us X amount of money to fund what we need.. gotta love that BS
Unless the situation has some aspect that this article is not reporting , then this seem a poor choice of course for Apple. Public spending is under unprecedented pressure. Making Macs more expensive for schools is poor timing.
This was one of the biggest comptative advantages over using MS, and is a huge mistake on Apple’s part.
@Demon? 40 Trillion for the first year of ObamaCare? Are you kidding??? Do you know how to do simple math??? The U.S. population is 300 million people. 40 trillion would be >$133,000 per man, woman, and child. Give me a break. That is simply WRONG!
You’ve heard the “pants” quotes, right? Strategically replacing key words in star wars quotes with pants?
“place Solo in the cargo pants”
“We used to shoot wamprats in our pants back home… they’re not much bigger than three meters”
“I’m altering the pants. Pray I don’t alter them further”
ahh… good times… good times.
@HMCIV
Awesome quote!
Though this is a little more expensive than the previous Apple Maintenance Agreement, it would be great to “force” everybody to have the most recent version of iLife and iWork. The biggest problem with this license agreements is that it is a requirement that the campus cover 100% of the staff and faculty Macs on campus. For a large university like mine, (University of California, Davis) it is an impossible task. If Apple would just let us do it one department at a time, they might get something. Now that it’s all-or-nothing, Apple will get nothing.
@Moo
Apple’s Education does require the pay of license fees for non-Apple hardware unlike Microsoft’s Education license than requires that a license be purchased for every computer even if the computer (laptop, desktop & server) runs another OS and is not able to run Windows (older Power Macs, Sparc based systems etc.). Apple’s pricing is also much more reasonable and lower then Microsoft’s pricing because Microsoft also as separate licensing terms and pricing for Office. Apple includes iLife and iWork in the Mac OS License so, it’s not any more expensive and for most schools it will end up saving money in the long run.
As for my Obama Care statement, the facts are the facts, learn to live with them. Like you’ll need to learn to live with Windows 7 and the fact that it is slower then Windows XP, it’s just a stated fact.
Another statement of fact: All Zunes are nothing more then Toxic Chemical boxes awaiting burial in a local landfill.
Thanks.
The libs who have enjoyed bashing Bush are now getting their comeuppance right up the chocolate highway and squealing like little infantile baby piggies.
I love it. I say keep up the truth squad activities and let the cry baby suckling infants self destruct.
We will be rid of that fskup Obama next go around.
As a retire Mac “Guru” for my local school district, I know this’ll give the Mac-bashers one more, if not final reason, to switch 100% to PC’s. As a user and still-unswitchable fan (meaning I’ll never do Windows), I’m appalled that I can’t upgrade my personal version of Logic Studio Education 8 without paying full-price. What’s the message here?
@Demon, @auramac:
I am a Libertarian … a true conservative, but your totally baseless “facts” that are pure rubbish take away from the REAL arguments against ObamaCare, or XYZ Care or any care. If you would just debate with real facts this country could make progress. Just remember, there is nothing wrong with actually learning and doing independent research instead of parroting the lines from some forwarded email or Wolf News Network or other factless source.
This is an absolutely terrible decision by Apple and one that will force schools to make the move over to the PC camp. Truly an awful move by Apple.
” 40 trillion would be >$133,000 per man, woman, and child. Give me a break. That is simply WRONG!”
No, it’s ‘RIGHT’. I know that’s very difficult for a ‘LEFTY’ to understand.
The really should have given out the money to the proletariate.
The economy would be BOOOOMING!!
SB, they really.
Love it when you guys twist any headline for your rants on Obama. Right or wrong the system here in Canada works (in SPITE of some of the garbage you have read).
Yes it costs but how is it in Canada that we are much more heavily taxed than you in the US and STILL we enjoy the same or higher standard of living.
FUD
And as for Apple, I am unhappy about the educational licensing changes. Does this mean that, similar to what is happening at MS or what happened at Apple before Jobs was ousted, the bean counters are starting to gain the upper hand?
@Demon:
Just go away. I don’t have time for your crap.
Strange that these licenses are so much more expensive per seat than what they charge for XServe seats.
I object to my longstanding (yet unregistered) handle being misappropriate by political misanthropes!
(The prior comments attributed to *Moo* have not been endorsed by the Real Moo, and as such, I am forced to give up my anonymity. Such as it was)
I hope this is just a bad dream from which I will wake up. Apple, your timing could not be worse – Windows 7 excitement has got us on the defensive again, and you whip out the rug from under us. Our small, independent school budget is already strapped with the Apple leases. Regardless of how bad Windows is, this change could be the tipping point to a few years of ‘going on the cheap’ if there are costs now imposed on us from Apple for which we have not budgeted. ugh. wake me up.
Shut the fuck up about politics – the rest of the world doesn’t give a fuck about your stupid political machinations. Bush and his cronies screwed the world and you’re too fucking stupid to see it because your “education” system has left you brain dead.
Thank God for America – where the fuck would we keep the fucking Americans without it?! Get over your self-centred, suburban pig-neck consciousness and shut the fuck up!