...the campus will contine to be full of white earbuds... It is likely that some students will choose to buy WMA-enabled player because of this deal. However, it is virtually certain that most of those buying an MP3 player for the first time will go with the cool thing. It is virtually imperative for the today's teens to own an iPod. Otherwise, you're a dork. As for the Dell/Napster axis, one has to give them credit for not giving up...

Giving away that much advertising, the university could have gotten a few hundred grand, I'd think. Taxpayer dollars badly spent. Makes you wonder if the guy in charge of this deal was getting something "personal." Damn good deal for Dell.

Given that the college was "forced" to reveal the details of this deal, I can't help wondering if such a deal, struck with public funds, can actually be legal?

This is brilliant! I'm sure none of these 3,000 people already own an iPod either. If Napster and Dell can snag all 3,000 of them, their combined dominance of the downloadable music market within a few months is assured.

I think Dell and Napster are sooooo desperate. Fear shows. One day soon they'll make parents sign an affidavit that mothers don't breast feed their babies with Apple juice.

The University was forced to reveal the details because it's a publically funded institution, Dell's agreement actually stipulates that the university canNOT reveal these details. Washington's public disclosure laws supercede Dell contracts though.

As for legality of the deal itself, I suspect it is legal, at least in the opinion of UW's legal folks; these kinds of deals are done all the time. Mostly, though they're for administrative systems.

My own university has such a partnership in place with Gateway for computers, meaning that generic workstation PC's are supposed to go through Gateway unless you have written justification. Mac purchases are exempt from this rule.

This also doesn't straightjacket students, though Gateway is giving us some fairly significant discounts for student and faculty/staff personal purchases as well, and Gateway is giving back in terms of equipment and funding for a variety of things.

(Note, Apple was one of the several companies approached for this partnership deal. I can see why they declined, but it would have been cool to be on a Mac-mandatory campus ;-)

I personally think this one is stupid, counterproductive and a waste of money. The only thing driving this is fear of the RIAA.

Certainly grounds for a lawsuit were I a Washington taxpayer or student, particularly if I were forced to pay for a music service I couldn't use.

So after 8 months, what happens? Poof... your music is gone unless they allow students to continue their subscription (probably at Napster's regular prices). So that's $24,000 public funds with nothing to show for it. And students will go right back to illegal downloads after their music disappears. Why not just buy them all a $16 iTunes gift card to let them try out Apple's service? A much better investment, and more likely to succeed at getting people to buy music legally in the long run.

And another question...I'm going to assume some students will have Macs. Are they to be left out in the cold with no benefit from the University spending all that money?

Other Universities have failed trying to shove Napsters c*** down students throats and this will be no different. Students like to own there music not rent it. They also mostly use iPods and wouldn't have it any other way. And they forget to mention that students usually have to pay and extra amount on there tuition to be part of the program.

Yes, Mac users are left out in the cold. Napster like all the other crappy music services don't even let Mac users into the store let alone buy anything. iTunes is the only multiplatform music download service with identical software that gives both Mac & PC users equal features and access to the iTunes music store. Just another reason to stick with iTunes.

Here is a link to one of the failed Napster music deals like this one. The students preferred iTunes even if they had to pay on there own. http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/44531.html