Apple Lands US$375,000 Contract To Provide Homework Web Site For School System

by , 4:30 PM EST, December 16th, 2002

Apple has landed a contract worth more than US$375,000 according to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. The paper, a property of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, says that the Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Education has approved the contract with Apple. The contract is for a Web site designed to allow students to work on homework assignments from library computers, or home. From the short report:

The board unanimously approved the $375,206 contract for the Electronic Backpack/ Universal Locker program.

Board Clerk Dave Black, who works for IBM, voiced his excitement for the potential for this new program.

"This is a pretty significant effort that has been lead by our Information Technology department,' he said.

You can find the original report at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin's Web site. Thanks to Observer Adam for the heads up on this news.

The Mac Observer Spin:

This is a new area for Apple, and one that could be most lucrative. The industry to provide services to companies is a multi-billion dollar a year industry, but school systems are just now entering that space. Apple, with its PowerSchool product, upon which this contract is most likely based, is alone of the major PC makers to be able to offer those kind of services, at least for now.

There is little doubt that Dell and HP both are working, or will be working, on their own competing products, but Apple has the edge, for now. Microsoft, too, if that company smells revenues, will eventually enter this space, but this victory for Apple will hopefully be one of many. Time will tell.

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin