In a nutshell, here are the advantages to sticking with Macintosh or a mixed platform environment:
1. Total cost of ownership [upgrades, maintenance, support costs, down times, etc ...] are lower on Macintosh than on Windows by a very substantial amount.
2. Macintosh systems are highly interoperable with other platforms, out of the box a Mac OS X system will communicate and share files and services with Linux, UNIX, and Windows systems, no need for 3rd party software or expenses.
3. Because platforms evolve so drastically and so quickly the OS of the system you use in school will not prepare you for what you will have in the work force as what you will have available 10-15 years from now when students enter the work force will be entirely different from anything that is available now. Therefore there is no advantage to using Windows in schools simply because many businesses currently use Windows.
Example: Many people use Windows competently in business right now. The vast majority of those people who had computers available to them in schools used Apple IIs or [a small minority] MS DOS based PCs. Some may have used early Macs in HS, college, or graduate school. The platform they used then has not changed their ability to use a different one now.
4. Security is a non-issue on Macintosh but cost over 6 billion dollars nation wide in the 3rd quarter of last year alone on Windows based systems. Security isn't about keeping students from trashing computers in labs or about keeping your e-mail private any more, now it is about downtime and support time. Here is a good link about the problems with trying to keep up with Windows security issues:
http://www.csoonline.com/read/080103/patch.html
Mac OS X systems average a security update every 2-3 months, MS issues security updates for Windows twice a month, that number is down from once every 1-2 weeks as MS has consolidated their issuing of patches because of user complaints. They issue the same number of them as they did before, now they just do it less often.
5. The average life-span of a Mac in a school environment is 5-8 years, often times more. PCs tend to last only 3-5 years in both school and business environments. While initial cost is sometimes higher for Macintosh systems [often there is actually price parity between Macintosh and Windows systems these days], they last longer, require less support, have fewer insecurities and downtimes, and have a lower learning curve.
Lastly Apple has been very aggressive in its dealings with schools the past 2-3 years. Contact your Apple representative, just call 1-800-My-Apple, select education, and tell who ever you get on the line you want to know how to contact your local rep. Once you are in touch with that person explain the situation, ask for resources such as comparison studies on performance, ease of use, TCO [total cost of ownership], etc ... They should be able to provide you with a sizable amount of information. Next ask them frank questions about what they can provide for your school as competitive options against PC OEMs. Don't be afraid to tell him or her that you are concerned the school will move to Windows and you want his/her help to find a Mac based solution. Apple education reps. are authorized to do quite a bit of wheeling and dealing to maintain and gain marketshare, there are minimum purchases in some areas before they can start tossing in highly discounted and free material but they will do it. Also look up or contact directly some of the schools that have bought 100% Macintosh solutions recently, the state of Maine reports excellent success with their iBook laptop initiative. Stillwater MN just went to iBooks in one of their schools. There was another school in Iowa that did the same and I think a big one in MI. Use google a lot, contact the schools that have bought all Mac solutions recently and talk to their teachers and support people so you have direct evidence to demonstrate that Macs are not only still viable solutions they are still better solutions.
Good luck to you.
David
On Jan 18, 2004, at 2:11 PM, l s wrote:
Greetings, I teach in a small church run school. I have a variety of Macs (and clones) in my classroom ranging from SE/30 to Umax C500. I know how to deal with the arguments about pc better than Mac, ie cost, usablity, etc. This morning after church I was talking with a school board member who wants to get the school more computers. He wants to get pc, because everybody has them. How do I respond to that? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks, Lee
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