Our school has about 400 users and about 150 computers. . . . three of them being Windows and the rest Macs. Our oldest are "fruity" iMacs less than 6 years old. I know 6 years seems long to many readers but a quick check of eBay shows these still sell for over $200 plus shipping each. That is more than a quarter the cost of a replacement unit.
Our budget has averaged $50000 for the past 6 years. With that we have replaced 1/6 of the computers each year, paid all networking expenses, bought the ink, software, paper, video converters, TVs, digital cameras, scanners...well, just about everything tech related. We have provided inservice (and paid the attending teachers). An average of five 45 minute periods have been set aside for tech during the school day and an average of $6000 paid to our tech people for work outside the school day and during the summer. Our total cost during this time for outside tech support is well under $500.
We provide state of the art software including Microsoft Office (Version X), Photoshop, Macromedia Studios, KidPix, and others.
Hope these figures will help you convince those you work with that Apple provides more for less.
Oh, we used these argument with ours:
Most users spend 5 percent of their time working in the OS, the rest of the time in applications and it is application skills employers seek.
Our network (Appleshare to OSX server) has never had a full day of downtime. Total downtime in 6 years is less than 12 hours.
We haven't needed to run antivirus software on Macs.
The only vandalism we have had has been stolen mouse balls and three physically damaged computers - no one has been able to damage a software install or OS.
Best of Luck
Mike Worman Tech Director Astoria Schools 402 N. Jefferson Astoria, IL 61501 Phone: 309-329-2156 Fax: 309-329-2246 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.astoria.fulton.k12.il.us
On Wednesday, August 27, 2003, at 08:58 AM, Amber Rhea wrote:
I recently started a new job as a technology coordinator at a middle school in Dallas, TX. The school has a new principle who is enthusiastic about technology. He asked me to do research for him on laptop carts. This school is all PCs. Of course, I am trying to convince him to buy a cart of iBooks. He was impressed when I told him about OS X's security features. Some of the questions he asked me showed me that clearly he had not used a Mac in at least 5 or 6 years. He was interested in what I had to say, and again very pleased to hear about security, but he still had that reservation so common in PC users who don't know anything about Macs: "...but will it work with all the other computers?"
I would like to put together some statistics for him showing, for example, the total cost of ownership for Macs vs. PCs, comparing their lifespan, maintenance cost, as well as things such as speed and reliability. I have found some web sites here and there that allude to these things. But does anyone know of a source that has some hard numbers on this that I can quote?
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