Wilkes University Dumps PCs for All Macs

by , 3:45 PM EDT, March 16th, 2007

Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania is eliminating all of their PCs in favor of Macs with Apple's Boot Camp, according to Computerworld on Thursday.

Scott Byers, vice president for finance and the head of campus IT said that, previously, Macs were a minority. With the new initiative, they'll be be able to reduce the total number of computers and save about US$150,000.

"We'll be able to reduce the number [of computers] by about 250 across the campus," said Byers. This is because labs and classrooms were typically outfitted with an inefficient PC-Mac mix. Now, with all Macs and Boot Camp, users can select the OS they need or prefer and the total hardware investment is reduced. Byers expects the total number of campus computers to drop from 1,700 to about 1,450.

Mr. Byers also cited the security of Mac OS X. "It is, well, the superior OS, isn't it?" said Byers. Prior to the change over, the IT manager was a "dyed-in-the-wool Windows user."

Nevertheless, the university has no OS mandate. The students can pick whatever OS they please according to Mr. Byers. However, he noted, "This generation seems to prefer Macs."