T he Cranbury Press, a newspaper that covers Princeton and central New Jersey, has posted a story detailing the decision of the schools in the town of Monroe to move from their installed base of Macintosh computer to PC. According to the article, a local school board member said that Macs are too expensive, citing the need to re-image 20 computers at a time, among other unspecified reasons. From the article:
"When we go to create new machines every year, there are tools out there that we can use to burn an image onto a server then onto 15 to 20 laptops at a time," he said about the PC computers. "In the Mac world, they donit have anything like that, they have to be reloaded individually every year."
Macintosh computers are also much more expensive to maintain, Mr. Kaufman said.
"Itis cheaper. Thereis a more competitive edge with a PC base and I can get more laptops with less money," he said.
The school district plans on converting one elementary school each year, Mr. Kaufman said. The Macintosh laptops from Woodland school are not going to waste. "Weire cycling the left over laptops to the other schools," Mr. Kaufman said.
The article goes on to say that the current Mac laptops may be offered to other schools or given to teachers. Read the full article at the Cranbury Press Web site.