by , 8:00 AM EDT, October 18th, 2001
Apple released a press release touting the growth it has achieved with iBook sales in the education market. The company says that iBook sales climbed by 18% in the education market during its fiscal 4th quarter, which ended in September. The company also says it is the number one vendor of portables to that market. From Apple's press release:
Apple® today announced that shipments of its popular iBook® notebook computer to education tripled in the fiscal 2001 fourth quarter over the same quarter last year, growing by an unprecedented 205 percent. According to leading market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC), Apple was the leading supplier of portable computers to the U.S. education market for calendar year 2000.*
"iBook sales to education tripled last quarter, further strengthening Apple's position as the leader in education portables," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "Districts, schools and administrators, along with teachers, students and parents really love the iBook."
Weighing just 4.9 pounds, the iBook features the first 1024-by-768 resolution 12.1-inch display in its class, FireWire® for video editing, and up to five hours of battery life. The iBook also features the choice of CD, DVD or CD-RW drive for easily burning music CDs, or a "Combo" DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive for both burning CDs and watching movies on DVDs. As wireless technology continues to emerge as the future of computing in education, the iBook also comes AirPort®-ready to enable simple yet powerful wireless networking.
* In 2000, Apple captured an 18.2% share of the U.S. education portable market and had the largest annual growth in this segment of any vendor. From 1999 to 2000, the portable growth in the U.S. education market was 37%, more than twice that of desktops (15%). (IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, Sept. 2001.)
Apple released revisions to its iBook line on Tuesday.
We really are gaining [market] share through the iBook right now. We have a real advantage in that a lot of our competitors are still competing on the desktop computer lab-basis where you take up classroom space. We're putting iBooks on carts and wheeling them in to where the students are learning. With wireless communications, we think we have a real advantage, and Apple is #1 in market share in portables [in education]. So we're confident that we really have the right portable product that is aggressively priced to keep us very strong in education, and we haven't seen a slowdown in education yet.
The point there, and it's a good one, is that Apple has moved to provide its education customers what it wants. Apple is busily fighting with Dell Computer for dominance in the education market, and that is where we need to point out something wrong with Mr. Anderson's comments. He made it seem as if Apple was the only company offering a wireless cart-oriented portable solution to schools. Dell Computer is also putting wireless notebooks on carts for the education market, and in fact started advertising this fact on TV long before Apple did. By "long before," we mean so far before that Apple still has yet to do so, and this is something we don't get. Apple had the "pimp" setup for education almost a year before Dell got around to it, despite Michael Dell's preposterous claim to have been the first to incorporate wireless support into its portable line. Despite this, Apple still doesn't push the concept in its advertising to the public.
Obviously Apple is getting the message out directly to the people that buy portables or they would not have seen 18% growth. That's only part of the battle, however, as parents and tax payers need to back the purchase of Macs for schools too. They too need to see this incredible solution for schools of which *their* kids and *their* schools can take advantage. That's what we think, at least.
In any event, we are delighted to see Apple grow its education sales, especially in such a hostile economy. That's no small accomplishment, and there are no doubt some folks at Dell grumbling under their breath about it.