Apple was awarded the contact to continue supplying laptops to Middle school students and teachers (grades 6-8) in Henrico County (some 12,675 units), beating Dell and other PC makers, MacDailyNews has learned. Apple lost the bid to furnish High School laptops to Dell last year, but a little less than a year after that move, Henrico chose Apple instead of Dell to continue in Middle Schools.
MacDailyNews readers who’ve followed this saga will also remember Henrico as the site of the mad stampede at Richmond International Raceway for the ill-advised Henrico County School’s $50 iBook sale.
UPDATE: February 10: 8:54am EST: “Henrico County middle school students will continue to use Apple laptops for another four years. On a 3-1 vote, the School Board last night approved a four-year contract worth nearly $16 million. The lone dissenter was James A. Fiorelli. Board member Hugh C. Palmer was not at the meeting. The new contract will begin after the current four-year pact with Apple ends June 30. The new contract is for 12,675 iBook laptops at a cost of $1,246 each,” Holly Prestidge reports for The Richmond Times-Dispatch. “Last night’s decision came after Dell Inc., which provides laptops for Henrico high school students, had offered last year to supply about 14,000 machines to middle schools at a cost of $1,111 per unit. That proposal was $20 less than the cost of the high school laptops. That offer expired Nov. 1.” Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: So, just how well can that switch from Apple+Mac OS X to Dell+Windows XP be going if the Henrico School Board quickly voted to pay more per unit for the Macs? The Henrico County School Board appears to have learned their lesson well.
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Keep or dump Apple iBooks? Henrico restarts laptop bidding on middle school computer contract – October 28, 2005
Henrico to decide whether to ditch Apple iBooks for Dell laptops in middle schools – October 10, 2005
Henrico students ‘excited’ to have Dells after four years with ‘hated’ Apple iBooks – September 24, 2005
Dell VP on Henrico’s switch from Mac OS X iBooks with to Windows XP Dells: ‘a computer’s a computer’ – September 22, 2005
After dropping Macs, Henrico officials work to protect students’ new Dells from viruses – August 30, 2005
Woman wets herself to keep place in line for $50 Apple iBooks – August 16, 2005
Apple continues to lead in customer satisfaction, Dell loses more ground – August 16, 2005
Henrico citizens stampede for $50 Apple iBooks – August 16, 2005
Henrico closes $50 Apple iBook sale to general public; only Henrico residents can buy – August 03, 2005
Henrico moves $50 Apple iBook sale to Richmond International Raceway due overwhelming demand – July 28, 2005
Apple announces 30,000 iBooks deal with Florida’s Broward County Public Schools – July 27, 2005
Henrico residents object to public sale of Apple iBooks – July 26, 2005
Henrico County Public Schools to sell Apple 12-inch iBooks for $50 each on August 9th – July 25, 2005
Henrico blasted for choosing Dell laptops with Windows XP over Apple iBooks with Mac OS X Tiger – May 09, 2005
Henrico school officials on Apple to Dell switch: The logo will change, but the tool is the same – April 30, 2005
Henrico school board dumps Apple Macs, picks Dells with Windows – April 29, 2005
Henrico County Apple iBook plan in jeopardy? – April 02, 2005
Survey shows support for Henrico iBook program with ‘lukewarm support’ for Apple’s Mac OS X – March 07, 2005
Henrico poll finds students are using iBooks successfully – February 11, 2005
Henrico iBooks raise concerns among some parents – May 28, 2004
Henrico high school laptop program to continue, but will it still feature Apple Macs? – February 24, 2005
More schools experience Windows virus, worm problems while Macs just keep working – August 22, 2003
A tale of two school systems: Windows schools crippled while Mac schools unaffected – August 21, 2003
Hope this helps the stock price!!!!!
Even more idiotic than changing from one platform to another in mid-program is using two platforms at two different levels. Way to serve those kids, Henrico!
I rather they serve two platforms if it means keeping Apple one way or another.
Henrico’s board has finally come to their senses! I hope they can somehow correct their previous erroneous decision for the sake of their high school students.
Sweet. Just sweet.
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Imagine graduating into high school… and having your iBook taken away and replaced with a Dell!
Only dunces buy Dells
Henrico huh?
The hits just keep on coming®
If this is accurate it is good news. ‘Anyone hear how the Boulder Valley School meeting went Wednesday?
I guess they got their annual budget report with the years use of the Dells factored in.
Say-Haleluyah!
Kids need to learn and work with the computer of the future, not the past. Even if they work with Windows when they grow up, it will look and work more like today’s Mac’s than today’s Windows computers.
The C students will rule the world.
Maybe they learned something from buying Dells.
I’m sure they can get rid of them if they give away $50 with each computer.
kenpet
PTL! This is great news…wish I could get the service contract!
I seriously hope there is news about how the Dell roll-out went.
It must have gone badly, or why else would they go back to Apple after less than a year.
If this is the case it augurs very well indeed for Apple in education…
Now start counting the money you’ll save, having less call-outs from your IT department. You can go buy another 1000 Macs…
I don’t think Apple should keep courting these fools. They obviously don’t have the kids best interests in mind, and there will be only more bad publicity for Apple next year when parents complain that their kids aren’t getting viri and what is the world coming to and we want our old familiar computers that act predictably and break every other day.
MDN Magic Word: “cost”, I shit you not. How does it know???
Let the lawsuits from parents begin! I wonder how busy Steve Berman is these days.
Cool!
Also: congrats to MacDailyNews for breaking this story a full 10+ hours before anybody else!
Guess the school thought it was best for the students in high school to learn PC’s like they will find in corporate America and the pain associated with them.
They also probably figured out how much this pain is compared to a Mac and decided it’s cheaper for the middle and grade schools to keep Mac’s.
Of course the lone dissenter is probablly on the take from Dell anyway.
Be surprised how much illegal behaivor goes on in the corridors of power.
After all John Scully sold out to Bill Gates early in Apple’s history, he just couldn’t make it appear like he did so he could collect as much money from Apple as possible.
Since this program begins on July 30th I guess the new laptops will be powered by Intel. Correct?
Hey MDN,
The new font layout on the page looks great!
Dude, you didn’t get a Dell
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if MDN would let us post images here we could have some nostalgic fun.