Re: [NTLK] eMac, eMate, are we getting somewhere?

From: Jeff Steinberg (AussiS5_at_mac.com)
Date: Tue Apr 30 2002 - 02:16:01 EDT


I think Mr. Caolo's description of the new eMac is a bit unfair,
considering the many benefits of this machine. First, yes, it was
designed for education, and this is a truly capable machine for this
job.700 MHz G4 processor (for photoshop, illustrator, etc..) ((same as
new iMac))DVD/CDRW combo drive, (only CDRW in the $1399, $1349 edu
priced new iMacand comes in1599, 1549 new iMac) 17in CRT (not a flat
panel but same viewing area, right? K, it comes with 128megs of ram
compared to the Imac 256, but that's no big deal... It comes with
worldbook, can be handy.. but that's nothin.. But basically this system
is quite capable for many demanding tasks, image editing, that becoming
so important nowadays. Plus it has a burner and DVD player.. might be
handy.. All at 1249, 300 less than a comparable new iMac. Looks like
what schools need.. plenty of power, all the benefits of the Mac
platform, esp, OSX. . Has all the bells and whistles sure to be popular
with students (DVD, CDRW) Looks cool.. hell i think it's perfect for my
'rents who've been choking on the price of the new iMac. maybe i'll use
my college student status to pick up one of these neat machines for the
folks. Seems like a great deal to me. I find it hard to believe that
school are really spending only 600 per machine, seems like you get only
barebones systems. well i guess you would. so those can't compare to the
peformance, features, and of course reliablity of a mac. Price is just
right for me. Hey, i'm not trying to be bastard, i just think Apple
really knew what they needed to put in a machine, I like this thing. So
I wanted to argue for the sake of discussion, k.. Thanks for reading
this rambling.. Later!! --jeff On Monday, April 29, 2002, at 09:09 PM,
David Caolo wrote:

>
> On 4/29/02 8:21 PM, "Josh Hillmann" <josh_hillmann_at_mac.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> What is an "eMac"?
>
> http://www.apple.mac.com/education/emate
>
> Today Apple announced the availability of its new product, the eMac.
> This
> computer is made specifically for the education market. In fact, you
> must be
> purchasing on behalf of a school to even get one. Get a good look at it,
> because it won't be around long. Remember the Cube? Here is its
> successor.
>
> This is a nifty looking thing, but it's way, way too expensive for
> schools.
> School districts are buying Dells and Gateways by the truckload because
> they
> can get a tower, monitor, keyboard and mouse for $600. If you had to buy
> three dozen computers for your school, would you rather pay $600 for
> one or
> twice that much? The people who make these purchases are not concerned
> with
> how fantastic the platform is, they're only concerned with what the cost
> will be. Schools are not exactly rolling in dough. How do I know? I'm
> the
> guy who makes all the tech purchases for the private school I work for.
> You
> know what Apple's education discount is for most machines? $100. Wow,
> that
> will just about cover the shipping. Glad you could spare it, Apple.
>
> We all know Apple has a killer platform, great software and great
> hardware.
> I'm lucky enough to work for a Mac-friendly school, and in fact, I
> ordered 7
> new iMacs that arrived last week. We got the $799 indigos for one
> reason:
> cost. Apple is very rapidly losing the education market, and if they
> want to
> regain that foothold, they need to wake the hell up and lower the cost
> on
> their damn machines. It drives me nuts. I recently saw two elementary
> schools (with about 600 kids each) replace all their aging Macs with
> Dells.
> Every single one.
>
> How many elementary or high schools need G4's in the classroom? None. In
> fact, we have three servers here (file server, a Retrospect backup
> server
> and a Filemaker server), and only the fileserver is a G4. The other two
> are
> biege G3's that do their job splendidly. Hell, the G3 all-in-one's they
> gave
> us years ago are still great machines. Do we need flat panels? No. It
> would
> be nice, but it's not the least bit necessary. How many machines here at
> work run OS X? One: mine. You think we're gonna retrain 150 people on
> OS X?
> Half of them can't even find the damn "on" button, let alone learn
> Apple's
> new Finder etc.
>
> Oh, Apple. I love you and despise you at the same time. I'll never stray
> from your products personally, but your pricing and marketing (don't
> even
> get me started on dumb commercials that say NOTHING about the
> product--the
> iMac ad is horrible, I don't care what you say--or the countless OS X
> ads
> we've seen (read:zero. It's been more than a year. What are we waiting
> for?), or the iPod ad that I saw ONCE on tv) decisions baffle me.
>
> I don't care how nice looking, compact, capable, speedy or
> teacher/student-friendly the eMac is. For $1200, only the wealthiest
> school
> districts will buy them. And their ain't many of those. So say "Hello"
> to
> eMac: the new Cube. It'll be a neat collectable, though. I'll pick
> one up
> on Ebay in a couple years.
>
>
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