The state of Maine has wisely decided to stick with Apple as the supplier for their statewide laptop plan, beating out a plan to replace the computers with Lenovo Thinkpads, supplied by middleman CDW-G. The plan calls for notebook computers for 32,000 students and 4,000 teachers for a price of around $41 million dollars, or roughly $289/laptop. The original deal, struck in 2002, worked out to about $300/laptop. Also included are upgraded wireless networks.
What I found interesting is that the article claims that the computers will be “iBook notebooks.” Seeing as how you can no longer buy iBooks in the Apple Store, will these be refurbed models? Or possibly ones that Apple had earmarked prior to the phasing out of the line? Or is there a chance that the article is just wrong and they’ll be using MacBooks instead?
One of my cousin’s daughters got an iBook from her school district in upstate New York as part of a similar deal and she loved it. The number of ways in which it let her harness her creativity were really impressive, and I think she may have gone Mac for life.
