Replies to post #66427 on Apple Inc (AAPL)

[baldrick]

Yes, but those Mac v PC ads don't help with that perception much do they? "Macs are for fun stuff, PCs are for work" is pretty much the message.

[langostino]

"all Macs can do is run iTunes?"

Kind of ironic, that post, in light of this announcement from Google:
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/02/22/ap3451579.html

Where Apple's long-term roadmap for basic office and productivity apps leads will be interesting. It seems to lack clarity of vision. Google, OTOH, seems to have a very clear roadmap, and they're grinding right along.

[Tex]

re marketing Macs to colleges

But, thanks for posting this, it is good news. I've said before that Apple should heavily target college campus computer centers. Now that they can dual boot, they have a big advantage - and they should 'sell' that advantage. On my recent college visits, I would see libraries and computer labs filled with both Wintel and Macs. If the schools started a replacement program with dual-boot Macs, they could probably have less computers overall, since you would not need to slice-and-dice between the two types. Any overflow of Win/Mac/Win ratio could be handled by the dual boot.

When I was in school, the labs were full of DECs. The move to Windows for serious use in business was made, in my view, by NT installations on campus leading to class after class of graduates with NT expertise (installation, configuration, troubleshooting, management, application selection). When your new hires know NT, guess what you end up finding incentives to install?

To the extent Apple can pull the same trick with MacOS X, it should fight to do so. I think the university is the place where the business battle (servers, high-end desktops) really begins.

Hell, I bought AAPL originally on this theory, but Apple's enterprise marketing is teh sukk.

Take care,
--Tex.