Further Thoughts on the NetBoot Mac
Dan Knight
- 2002.12.23
Last week's Thinking Different About
a Low Cost Mac for Education received a fair bit of attention and
feedback. Educators' News commented:
- I really think Apple needs to just suck it up and give up on their
cherished 30% profit margin for education, drop their prices, and sell
a whole bunch of Macs to schools. I also know that probably will never
happen. Dan's column contains some thoughtful ideas about what a
quality, but inexpensive Mac for education should be.
We also received some thoughtful email, such as this one from Bob
Ketcham:
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A nice thoughtful article... It brought to mind a couple of
questions...
- Does Net Boot work with an Airport? If not, it should.
- How about some low cost student .mac accounts? Say $20 per student?
I suspect there might be a little .mac capacity going underutilized
since the service went to a paid model. This would eliminate the need
for a USB memory drive. With WebDAV the students could access files
from home even if their parents cripple them with PCs.
The model you describe is technically advanced, yet clean and
simple. In other words, typical Apple. Apple should pursue it
aggressively.
It would provide a very attractive price for doing a whole classroom
at a low cost and provide a point of entry for their more luxurious
offerings such as an iBook for each student to take home.
Since Mac vs. PC education arguments are most often lost on the
initial entry level cost, this would eliminate that argument.
Apple should sell the model you have proposed as a per class/lab
system. Priced and preconfigured with appropriate software and
networking setup. A single AppleScript to run on the Server to set the
router address, etc., and we're off.
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I don't know if network booting works with AirPort, but I suspect
that drivers would need to be loaded before this could work. Which
shouldn't be a big deal anyways, since AirPort is too slow (think USB
speeds) for this kind of thing. 100Base-T ethernet is the slowest you'd
want to consider, and gigabit ethernet would be even better.
Low-cost student .mac accounts are an interesting idea, but at $20
per student that comes to about $500/year per class. It also assumes
the school has a broadband connection - which really should be
essential these days. And it assumes students have Macs at home to
access their .mac space.
A better, no-cost solution would be to make the student work folders
accessible from the outside world regardless of platform. Mac, Windows,
and Linux users would all be able to log in to upload and download
files. This could be a lot more practical (not to mention lower cost)
than USB memory drives.
I agree that this is the kind of clever, think different solution
that has always set Apple apart from the crowd.
Jeff Gagne sent the following reflections:
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Just some thoughts:
- This Mac will not be suitable for any kind of video work. 100bt
network (even switched) with a mounted home directory will not work for
video editing.
- Quite a bit of Ed Content is on CD so we MUST have a CD for every
computer. Some are ID checked so a disk image on a server will not
work.
- This is a Lab/Internet machine. With the exception of business
classes, and keyboarding, laptops are the future labs are going away in
droves.
Desktop sales to Education is down while laptops were up around 30%
last year and more YTD. Interesting note there is Apple is #1 in laptop
sales to Education.
Though cost is BIG on education I'm seeing more and more things
dictated by curriculum needs and this thing won't meet most of
them.
Your machine is a computer that schools that have stayed Apple will
not buy, as they see the value of a media rich CPU or laptop, it won't
sell to Windows schools because it doesn't create a compelling reason
to move over. Think software and training costs.
Nice idea but I just don't see it moving the bar.
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I don't know how much video editing takes place in the typical
classroom, nor how the software handles files in memory vs. the hard
drive. But keep in mind that this is a low cost solution for schools
that can't afford or don't need Power Macs. In any classroom where
editing video might be a significant factor, the school would probably
want to use Macs with their own hard drives to avoid significant
network congestion.
If, on the other hand, video editing is something Apple wanted to
push on such hardware, they could simply leverage their investment in
gigabit ethernet.
Educational software that requires students to handle CDs is just
asking for trouble. Discs get scratched, dropped, and snapped in half
far too easily. I'm sure that if these companies wanted to, they could
rewrite their programs to make them work from a server.
As for laptops, that's a different and better solution for schools
that can afford them. We're not trying to derail the iBook, which is
probably the best education idea Apple has ever had. Yes, laptops are
the future of personal computing, but we're trying to create an
affordable alternative to $700-1,000 computers.
Think American schools with very limited resources and overseas
markets that may not yet have one computer per student. iBooks and
eMacs are great, but not every school system can afford them.
Alvin emailed this from the Philippines:
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The article of netbooting for an education Mac is a good idea. No
more hard disk or CD and makes it more affordable, which is no. 1
schools priority in buying computers to teach. I hope Apple
listens.
Problem
Because financially PC has a big lead, it can copy that design again
eliminating R&D but even make it cheaper because of that and also
make it cheaper with cheaper parts because they know school prioritizes
costs particularly the initial lay out of cash - they know that most
people not only schools who need bulk numbers of computers look at that
first. Hopefully to prevent that evil of copying again by MS (we
believe they copied it) on this new improved netbooting, OS 10.3
possibly it should have a fast patent on that but then that doesn't
come easy.
Copying advantage
Although copying Apple ideas has it's bad side for Apple, if based
on leading the future it's a good thing because if this education Mac
is made other's will follow and education as well as offices as it can
be applied there will be a better place. For me, Apple is a leader and
should not make itself the the cheapest computer but should be what
Steve is doing, be the best and be the leader of design in IT industry
both software and hardware. It should always be a technology company
for the most part but it must be humanitarian as well. To cut more cost
and make PC people switch it is good to have a donate the Mac, trade in
drive to have discounts by Apple itself. Probably Apple's mission is to
lead others to the best design, to have good service through good
products before profit.
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Thanks for your response from far outside American suburbia. It's
not one world, and as Jeff Gagne points out, it's not one education
market. The needs of those who edit digital video are very different
from those who just want to finally put enough computers in the
classroom so they're actually useful to all the students.
As for Windows PCs, what they gain from being cobbled together with
standard parts from an untold number of suppliers they lose to the cost
of licensing Windows. Cheap is as cheap does, but Windows is the most
expensive component in a low-end Windows PC. Because Apple makes the
whole widget, this could eventually work to Apple's benefit.
Although there is some innovation on the Wintel side of the street,
Apple really is the innovation leader. They made USB a useful standard,
not just another port on the back of Windows PCs that nothing plugged
into. They created FireWire, which has set the standard for digital
video connectivity. They dropped the floppy, a move that one PC maker
after another is following. They made editing video and burning DVDs
easy.
I think a netboot Mac fits right into that pattern. It would sell
Xserves, get Apple in more classrooms, and could pave the way for more
expensive Macs being deployed in other areas of the school.
I'm not proposing the NetMac as the only Mac education solution or
the best Mac education solution, only as the most affordable prong in
Apple's attempts to grow their share of the education market.
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