Apple renews Henrico iBook contract
updated 09:10 am EST, Fri February 10, 2006
Henrico iBook contract
Apple has renewed a contract to supply Henrico County middle school students with new iBooks for another four years, beating out Dell and other PC makers. The new Apple contract follows a controversial school board decision last April that chose Dell to supply computers to every high school student and teacher next year. The four-year iBook program renewal, which begins on July 30th, is for 12,675 iBook laptops at a cost of $1,246 each. The report notes that Apple's bid was higher than an expired Dell bid from last year that offered 14,000 machines to middle schools at a cost of $1,111 per unit; however, that bid expired on November 1, 2005 and the Times Dispatch did not provide any details as to why the higher bid from Apple was approved Thursday night by the School Board.
Remember When...
02/10, 11:23am reply
Remember when this was one of the BIG stories on Macnn and TV news programs? Most of the TV news that I watched said that Apple wouldn't get the contract.
Guess they were wrong.
wmcraver
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Dec 2005
um... yeah
02/10, 12:16pm reply
Maybe Henrico county has some people who can look beyond the cost per unit and see that support costs per unit make the Macs a better value.
ATPTourFan
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2003
What went around came aro
02/10, 12:30pm reply
Someone realized last year, if it's too good to be true, it probably isn't true.
Some kids and parents tasted the smoothness of OSX first, then had Dell, and it was a no brainer for the district, with or without any pressure.
Perhaps the GPA dropped for the kids or the Dell/Windows maintenance costs reared its ugly head.
Or maybe the lust of another frenzy when it's time to auction off the next batch of iBooks.LOL
In any case, Apple wins in the end and so do the kids and the education system. Just in time for iBookIntels. or iSchoolBook Pros.
HouseSold
Mac Enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2000
Ummm
02/12, 05:13pm reply
They're not replacing the Dells. These are computers for the middle school, who already had ibooks, not the high school which went to dell. And maybe that bid from Dell wasn't chosen because, I don't know, it expired!
BTW, the contracts include maintenance and repair, so its not like Dells cost the district more for breaking down more (although, since they used to use iBooks, I can't imagine the Dells breaking down more, what with those freakin' mobo/video issues those iBooks have had for like 5 years).
LouZer
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2000