Henrico chooses Apple

Pricing was only one of concerns that helped Apple renew its contract for supplying Henrico County's middle school students with laptops. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that both laptop size and "breadth of add-ons" were also crucial to Apple's bid for the four-year contract for students in Henrico County, Virginia. Earlier this month, Apple won the Henrico iBook contract, beating out five other companies including rival Dell, who last April had snatched away the landmark contract for Henrico's high school students. While Dell offered a lower priced bid, the size of Apple's 12-inch iBook, the slot-load optical drive, battery life, and other factors were important in the committee's decision to give Apple'e the nearly 13,000 laptop contract for $15.8 million: "Apple included some attractive extras for instruction, such as certain software and an operating system with built-in features for special-education students, such as text-to-speech and zooming capabilities."

by MacNN Staff