Posted on 09/30/2007 1:31:41 PM PDT by Swordmaker
iPod fever fuels Apple's resurgence on campuses across Minnesota Pioneer Press
Sara Langhinrichs, a Macalester College
political science student, says her MacBook
is easy, straightforward and doesn't have
viruses. She previously used a PC laptop,
"until it started kind of smoking, and that
didn't seem like a good thing."
(RICHARD MARSHALL, Pioneer Press)
At Café Mac on St. Paul's Macalester College campus a recent afternoon, Macintosh computers reigned supreme.
Students using Apple laptops were scattered throughout a second-story lounge overlooking the student eatery - named for the college, not the computer - while a lone Windows-laptop user sat a table.
Though students owning Windows PCs actually outnumber Mac owners at Macalester, this tableau points to the Mac's surging popularity on college and university campuses across Minnesota and the country.
Apple's Macintosh once was an endangered species in U.S. higher education amid the brand's market doldrums and Microsoft's seemingly unassailable Windows dominance.
Now, the Mac is back in a big way.
At the University of Minnesota bookstore, Macs are enshrined in a flashy sales-display area intended to imitate Apple's retail stores, while a handful of Windows laptops at the campus shop are relegated to a back wall.
Students at Winona State University, required to choose between a MacBook laptop and a Windows-based touch-screen tablet PC for school use, have increasingly gone Mac despite its lack of touch-screen capabilities.
At Minnesota's private colleges such as Macalester, St. Olaf in Northfield and Gustavus Adolphus in St. Peter, the percentage of Mac-using students has doubled, tripled or more, although this trend is by no means universal.
St. Paul's Concordia University, a "laptop campus," issues Windows-based Lenovo ThinkPads to its on-campus students.
At St. John's University in Collegeville, where students can bring any computer they like, the portion of Mac users last year hovered at about 6 percent, little higher than the Mac-use percentage in the general population.
"We're a PC campus," said James Koenig, director of information-technology services at St. John's, noting that most software used in classes is Windows-based.
At Minnesota State University (Mankato), "we've had to reduce the amount of Macintosh computers" installed for student use "because they tend to sit unused," said Bryan Schneider, director of technical services. "In large labs and computer centers, Windows computers are preferred by the majority of students."
But recent Mac growth on campuses elsewhere in the state has dramatically outpaced Mac growth in the general population.
This is said to be fueled in large part by iPod fever among students. Apple not only makes the popular brand of portable music and video players, but its ubiquitous iTunes software is innately linked to the iPod. Student users also like the Mac's near-immunity to PC-type viruses and spyware, and the fact that the latest Macs can run the Windows operating system along with Mac OS X courtesy of the machines' PC-compatible Intel processors.
Apple, which once seemed to fumble this key educational market after dominating it in the early 1990s, got its act together in recent years, according to college administrators interviewed for this article. Mac hardware has become increasingly alluring, they say, and Apple's education discounts have helped seal the deal.
Macintosh "pricing has come down, and the products are extremely functional," said Roberta Lembke, St. Olaf's director of information and instructional technologies. Apple "support is excellent, its quality is excellent (at a time when some) PC makers have seen a nosedive in the quality of their products, (causing) consumers to lose confidence. "The iPod is what brought people to at least consider the Mac again," Lembke added.
About a quarter of St. Olaf students owned a Macintosh as of last year, according to Lembke's figures, up from a low of 13 percent between 2000 and 2003, and approaching the college's all-time high of 36 percent during the 1997-1998 academic year. She expects another 5 percent to 10 percent uptick when this year's student computers are tallied.
The raw number of student Macs at St. Olaf has grown, too, given that the percentage of students with computers has risen from about 31 percent in 1990 to about 97 percent today.
Students who switch from Windows PCs to Macs are commonplace, Lembke said, but "I never hear students who have switched to a Mac saying they are going back to Windows."
St. Olaf sophomore Peter Holt, a longtime PC user, has just made the Mac switch after working in the school Mac-support department and realizing how seamlessly Apple hardware and software work together. He also likes having the option to boot into Windows as needed. He uses a desktop iMac for schoolwork and software development, as well as to play Windows games with his brother over the Internet.
St. Olaf sophomore Julio Lopez also recently made the switch, investing in a 15-inch MacBook Pro for dual-booting purposes.
He uses productivity software such as Microsoft's Word when in Windows Vista, and switches to Mac OS X for multimedia apps, such as Apple's Final Cut video editor and Aperture photo organizer. He even has set up an external-storage hard drive for each operating system.
Given all of these capabilities, Lopez said, buying a Mac "is a no-brainer." The percentage of computers owned by St. Olaf is about 36 percent Macs today, down from about 45 percent in 2002. But the machines include new "dual-boot" Macs that let students easily switch between Windows and OS X, which means administrators can end the space-squandering practice of setting up separate PCs and Macs.
At Gustavus Adolphus, student-Mac ownership has soared from 5 percent in 2000 to 22 percent this year. One in four freshmen this year own Macs.
"Much of this can be tied to the success of the iPod," said technology-services director Bruce Aarsvold, "but many students also recognize that viruses and infected spam pose almost no risk to the Macintosh platform."
This becomes clear when students register their machines on the campus computer network, said Gustavus Macintosh coordinator Steven Vogt. Windows users have to hit strict requirements involving anti-virus and firewall software that must be present on their hard drives, but Mac users "are ready to go. It's very hassle-free."
Vogt worked for Apple, helping to run the firm's Twin Cities retail stores, before joining Gustavus this summer.
Macalester, while not tracking student-computer use as closely, also sees a Mac surge.
"Here, Mac use is growing quickly," David Sisk, associate director of information technology services, said in an e-mail. Of about 95 percent of on-campus students who bring computers to school, he said, about 30 to 35 percent are Macs. That's up from about 5 to 10 percent a half-decade or so ago.
"Students are pragmatic about computing," Sisk said. "While many of them don't clearly understand viruses, hacks and OS stability, they do see that Macs 'just work,' for the most part, while PCs require more maintenance and knowledge. Apple's emphasis on visually exciting design, lowered prices, near-intuitive graphics, music apps, and (of course) the mighty iPod all hit the student demographic hard."
At Café Mac, students with Mac laptops included lifelong Mac-head Elizabeth McNamara, a senior, along with junior Jessica Blascak and senior Elissa Vinnik, both of whom bought their Macs upon enrolling at Macalester.
Blascak said her PowerBook is a vital sidekick given her dabblings in high-end photography - she owns a fancy multi-lens camera - and the ease with which pictures can be edited and organized on a Mac with little or no extra software investment. (Mac use among such shutterbugs is commonplace.)
Both Vinnik and McNamara have suffered Mac malfunctions - Vinnik had a hard drive die; McNamara's iBook perished during finals, prompting a frantic scramble for a new MacBook Pro - but remain loyal to the platform.
Winona State University may constitute the ultimate test of Mac popularity because it gives students a stark choice - MacBook or Gateway-branded Tablet PC - when selecting their school-required laptop. And, indeed, Mac use has increased. Last school year, student computer use was 89.8 percent Gateway and 10.2 percent Apple; this year, the split is 83.6 percent Tablet PC and 16.4 percent MacBook, according to school-tech administrators.
Winona State professor Patrick Paulson said while Windows laptops still represent the vast majority of portables in his management-of-information-systems classes, Mac use has grown.
He says Winona State students increasingly are adventurous and willing to try new things - such as loading Windows on a MacBook and using it as, essentially, a PC.
Winona State senior Andrew Liebetrau, a mass communications student, said he resisted switching from a PC to a Mac - but soon realized it was just what he needed. Apple's free iMovie video-editing software alone proved handy for his media-related schoolwork, and he later used an education discount to get Apple's Final Cut Express software.
"I've had zero problems with viruses clogging things up and bogging down" his MacBook, he said. The Mac runs more smoothly, "definitely." Macs have no glitzier higher-education pedestal in Minnesota than the University of Minnesota's main bookstore at Coffman Memorial Union in Minneapolis.
Managers recently created a store-within-a-store area that mimics Apple's famed retail outlets - right down to elegant butcher-block-style display tables fashioned out of light-colored wood to show off Macs, iPods, iPod-speaker systems and the like.
This approach makes sense because, until about a month ago, Macs were the only computers the bookstore sold.
"When we got back into the computer business" after a six-year hiatus, "we felt Apple had the best program for academic purchases," said James Kyle, a bookstore manager responsible for computer technology. Apple iPod sales at the UM bookstore already had prompted requests for Macs, "which didn't surprise me - It's a natural extension."
Mac laptop sales have been "very healthy" during the past year, Kyle said. "We've seen our business continually get better and better." (Mac desktops, such as the Mac mini, sell abysmally.)
The bookstore got plenty of requests for Windows PCs, though, because the university is a predominantly Windows-based institution. Kyle's standard approach until recently was to suggest a Mac with Windows on it.
But, in a nod to the Windows-using majority, the bookstore lately has added a handful of elegant Sony VAIO laptops to its inventory. Even so, Macs will remain popular at the U, Kyle believes.
"People moving over to Apple have everything they want," Kyle said, "ease of operation, creativity and looks," not to mention the dual-operating-system capability. "Apple has been very smart in going to Intel-based processors."
Julio Ojeda-Zapata covers consumer technology. Reach him at jojeda@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5467. Get more personal tech at yourtechweblog.com and twincities.com/techtestdrive.
Apple’s stock will continue to see incredible growth over the next year. I think it could hit $250 over the next 12 months.
It didn't work.
Once the users got loose in the real world they pretty much had to swim with the adults or stay outside looking in...
Mac on campus around the country
Pioneer Press
Article Launched: 09/30/2007 12:01:00 AM CDT
Mac use has surged at other U.S. colleges and universities. For instance: Dartmouth College. The New Hampshire Ivy League school, once all but Mac-exclusive, saw Windows PCs creep onto the campus in recent years. But now Macs are mounting a major comeback. About 55 percent of freshmen this semester have Macs, according to a spokeswoman, compared with 43 percent in fall 2006 and 30 percent in fall 2005.
University of Virginia. Freshmen are surveyed on their personal technology every year. Data for fall 2006 found 20 percent of freshmen owning Macs. That's up from 3 percent in 2002. About 77 percent said they own portable music players, and Apple's iPods account for 87 percent of those players. Available figures for this fall, focused more narrowly on university-configured computers sold to students, found Mac's share at 30 percent, up from 21 percent a year ago.
"At their lowest ebb, in 2000, Macs were awfully hard to find on the campus: About one of every 35 students owned one," UV spokesman Brevy Cannon said. "Now one in five students has a Mac."
Cornell University. The Ithaca, N.Y., Ivy League school keeps records of student computers connecting to its dorm-based Residence Hall Network Service. About 6 percent of the computers were Macs in 1999, according to a technical staffer, dipping to 5 percent between 2000 and 2002. Mac share then surged from 8 percent in 2003 to 15 percent in 2006 and 21 percent in 2007.
Wilkes University. This Wilkes-Barre, Pa., college is going all-Mac with university-owned machines. Most computer labs already are equipped with Macs. The university's 1,700-computer network will shift entirely to the Mac in the next three years.
These figures don't account for student-owned computers, which are 11 percent Macs, according to estimates.
Apple laptops were more than 17% of the US market last year... and growing.
Just the way things should be! Vanquish those PCs from the Dark Side to the dark corner where they belong!!
I’m not so sure about that - I figure on a split before then. But I could be wrong.
Apple will probably split, but my prediction is ignoring that possibility. The point is it will go up 50-100% over the next year.
I work as an equities trader. Friday my IT guy asked me if I’d like to test a Mac for trading!
Something is changing!
“At Café Mac on St. Paul’s Macalester College campus a recent afternoon,
Macintosh computers reigned supreme.”
Macs are very good computers.
So good that I won’t hold the recommendations of a liberal colony
and alma mater of Kofi Annan against the Macs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofi_Annan
Perhaps it’s only natural that the trust-fund babies at Macalester would only
end up buying Macs.
Maybe they are big on alliteration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliteration
Faculty love the Mac. Used to be it was just the Lib-Arts and Fine-Arts types, but because of the Unix background, the math and sciences people have jumped into Macs in a big way, especially for things like computer modeling. There are tons of Unix math and science apps out there, and most of these people were already Unix proficient anyway.
“Schools and colleges have always been the stronghold of Apple’s 4% market share.”
Yep, where the liberals are staunchly entrenched. Monkey see monkey do.
Monkeys are those like a friend of mine who bought a $400 Gateway laptop made out of cheap plastic. It broke the 16th day she had it. They said over the counter return was 15 days and sent it off to the factory for repair. She bought a Mac and will sell the gateway when it comes back.
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