December 6 A major chink in the armor hit the Apple educational market as pointed out by both members of the bbbs and the Chonicle of Higher Education - a newsletter for colleges and higher-educational institutions. In spite of Apple's hopes and pushes back into major campuses, with soundbites along the lines of "once they use Windows - they'll come back to the MacOS", think again. Observers note the continuing catastrophic demographic slide for Apple now synomonous with the word "drastic". The campus of Berkley reports that out of 4200 plus incomming freshmen this year and plugging their computers into the campus network - only 358 are Mac OS users - about 8 percent if you do the math. This is pretty bad considering that a mere 2 years ago reports from the campus sysadmins and pollsters were putting Apple at 70 to 80 percent. Personally in Apple's heyday - even my own geek-prone campus corners never garnered those numbers (and by geek - my campus went with NeXT at several locations). Still it gives hope that the slide either reflects the general computing public better than the numerical and empircal war that this site monitors twords real-life and real-job environments, and perhaps more kids in college are giving themselves the boost that many administrators are choosing to deprive other campuses via Apple's strong-arm marketing tactics. It would seem that college revolts these days aren't about bombing war R&D establishments - but throwing a finger up at divergent OS platforms that would otherwise compromise future hiring opps. This is further reflected in the Gartner Group reports that concur that students and parents want campuses to use computers and OS's that students are likely (and with 1% being the business world norm for Apple - it's more of a certainty) to use once they graduate and become part of the job-base. Imagine that! Reality is getting a clue in spite of marketing pressures, Jihaddic rants from the Apple faithful, and lame pressures from adminsitrators that are biased against the real-world. It almost gives me hope for the future.

December 7 This is really a part 2 to the first part of the report from The Cronicle of Higher Ed because it had too many juicy soundbites to reserve for a single day. I don't do this often, so savor and enjoy (it tastes like chicken!). Cornell University reports that campus labs are sitting around 50% Mac OS - but students are bringing in 90% Wintel computers for their rooms. This isn't too mind-blowing because after all, Cornell actually was one of the largest buyers into NeXT computers for labs that otherwise went unnoticed by the student body. At this point, I'd say Cornell is par for the course - and is handling student funds with the usual aplomb. Arthur Gloster, CIO of Florida International University - an Apple fanboy - claimed that while he'd like to see more competition in the college marketplace, he's not getting more Macintoshes on his 95% Wintel campus, because quote "it's another level of COMPLEXITY to support". Gee, I thought the machines Apple was foisting on an unwilling public were so goddamn easy to admin over - that they sold themselves! The article concludes that the cost of supporting two divergent and platforms - one of them non-applicable to the vast majority of the job market - is a unaffordable option for the college markeplace in general. Naturally I'd expect the MacButt-Plug brigade to chime in around now and say that the Wintel crew is sucking all of the sysadmin funds out of the equation - but the article (and I) counter that the fact of the matter is Apple's marketplace position has degraded to such an extent - that finding someone who can admin over a Mac network and lab is a luxury item due to it's rareity. Suffice it to say that rather than spend more money finding the rare and expensive tech to support an otherwise irrelevant network is a little lower down the priority list than actually giving kids the support in the IT department that they paid for that would otherwise give them a good job when they graduated. Other wonderful news-nuggets from the piece also included the usual suspects of dwindiling support from Apple, lack of software, and a major lack of anything resembling courseware or a platform that supports a decent run-time for executing custom college and administration applications that are the mainstay of any complex verticle market be it education or business. I'd dwell more on these last points - but it's pretty much a duh scenario for anyone with half a brain. Not that I'm giving the MacJihad that much credit mind you.