Apple may be entering a comeback phase on the education front thanks to “reviving strength” in laptops for students and in the college market, according to a BusinessWeek Online special report by Technology Editor Alex Salkever.
Not that everything is rosy. In its fourth fiscal quarter, ended Sept. 27, Apple’s sales to schools fell 15 percent from the year-ago quarter. Still, sales to colleges and universities were the best in seven years. And an October survey by education technology tracker Quality Education Data (QED) predicted that over the next 12 months Macs should account for 30 percent of PCs purchased by K-12 school districts across the country compared to Dell’s 37 percent, as administrators choose to buy more laptops. That would be up nine points from fiscal 2003 and would be the highest figure for Apple in four years, Salkever points out.
“If that prediction pans out, it could foretell a long-awaited reversal of fortune for Apple in its former stronghold,” he writes. “Pair that with Apple’s good news in higher ed, and the Mac could be about to bounce back at school.”
The special report also looks at Apple’s education sales over the past few years and examines the factors that are now apparently aligning in Apple’s favor, such as Power Mac G5s, Mac OS X and the expanded range of portables.