The MacBowl charity event, sponosored by Macworld and Aspyr Media, continued its seven-year tradition of raising money and Macintosh-related equipment donations for a local San Francisco-area school Thursday night. This year’s event raised $24,000 in cash and equipment for the Paul Revere Elementary School, located in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood. This brings the grand total raised since the MacBowl was conceived to $146,000.
At the beginning of the festivities, Macworld president and CEO Jeff Edman and Aspyr Media president Michael Rogers presented Paul Revere Elementary principal Lance Tagamori with an honorary check.
The MacBowl brings together exhibitors from Macworld Expo at the Yerba Buena Lanes 10-pin bowling alley atop the Moscone Center, where the Expo itself is held ,for a night of bowling and fun. On hand this year were teams from Apple, Macworld , Aspyr, Elgato, Freeverse, Microsoft, Miglia, Other World Computing, Roxio, Seagate, Smith Micro and Software MacKiev. Other contributors to the event included Griffin Technology, IDG World Expo, Epson, and Parallels.
To enter a four-person team in the event, each company ponies up $1,500 in a cash donation or the equivalent in Macintosh hardware. Working with the San Francisco Unified School district, Macworld identifies an at-risk school that can use help getting a new computer lab installed for its students.
It’s also an opportunity for MacBowl participants to test their skills on the lanes—an impressively large trophy is awarded to the team with the highest score at the end of the night. This year, that award went to the team with the highest combined store after two games.
What the folks from DVR software and hardware maker Elgato lacked in talent they made up for in enthusiasm, scoring at the bottom at 677. Software MacKiev, which definitely codes software better than it bowls, garnered a score of 719. Close behind them was Apple, which managed to eke out a total of 734.
Freeverse Software, long a last-place staple at the MacBowl, improved its showing dramatically, nailing a solid 740 before the end of the night. And Roxio, returning for its second year of MacBowl participation, hammered a 786 by the time the final count was tallied. And Miglia Technology rounded the night with a combined total of 787.
Seagate/Maxtor, also returning for its second year, brought two teams with it, and its first team managed to eke out 792. Other World Computing landed close to the top of the pack with an 814, closely behind Seagate’s second team at 850.
Smith Micro, a long time MacBowl participant dating back to the team’s affiliation as Allume Systems, scored an impressive 897. It was an impressive showing given that they’ve usually competed with Freeverse for last place.
It will be no surprise to anyone who has followed MacBowl events over the years that the top two finishers came from non other than Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit, long a top contender at the event. Microsoft’s Team Green came in second place with a total of 917 and its Gold team took home the trophy (again) with a total of 1,114.
Macworld and Aspyr Media are grateful for everyone’s participation in the 2007 MacBowl and look forward to making it even bigger and better in 2008.