Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!BRL.ARPA!abc
From: abc@BRL.ARPA (Brinton Cooper)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Educomputing 2000
Message-ID: <8912301451.aa16052@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>
Date: 30 Dec 89 19:51:25 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 47


In response to erickson@mfgmem.dec.com's argument "that the greatest
threat to Apple's hold on the K-12 market will come as a result of
IBM's release of OS/2 and the new bus architecture..." 
Tamara <UNESTJ%UNCVX1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu> writes:

>  Schools are conservative institutions. Change comes slowly. IBM is going to
>  have to do more than just offer a cheaper better machine. I believe they will
>  need a good argument for telling schools (especially their libraries) to trash
>  all the software they've invested in because there's better software out there
>  and that multitasking or speed or any of the other sexy things OS2 proports to
>  do are really going to be useful in this particular environment.

The argument is even stronger.  In addition to thousands of dollars in
software, school districts may have tens of thousands of dollars worth
of Apple II computers in each elementary school.  My wife's public
school has about 10 such machines on a server.  To move away from Apple
would cost our county perhaps a half million dollars.  

In addition, there are teacher re-training  costs.  Every time a teacher
is sent to an "in service" workshop, a substitute teacher is hired.
Instructors for these workshops are hired, and study materials are
purchased.  Who pays for all this?

In this region, Apple and the Giant food chain are collaborating on a
promotional to give away, typically, an Apple IIe for $125,000 in food
store cash register receipts.  This only increases the installed base of
II-class systems even more.  In addition, those few high schools that
had Apple II machines have passed them over to the elementary schools,
thus concentrating the installed base and making it more viable as more
machines are available to the children at one time.

I don't know who will benefit the most from all this.  According to
InCider, Apple may abandon the II line in 1990.  Yet, the machines chug
along.  Perhaps  Claris, Broderbund, and the Minnesota Educational
Computing Consortium will benefit by continued software sales.

But I don't think that  our County Council will buy the argument that
the existence of OS/2, new bus archintectures, multitasking, and the
386/486/586 processors are sufficient reason to abandon  an investment
and sign up for an additional $500K or more of expenses.

>  Just my humble opinion

Mine, too.

_Brint