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MacInSchool

A teacher in the Katy Independent School District sent the following information:

Katy ISD, in Katy, Texas (a suburb of Houston), is phasing out Macs. Over the coming years, installed Macs will be replaced by Dell computers running Windows.

The school in which my source teaches is to go Wintel over in two years. In the meantime, they only have one full lab of Power Macs, another partial Mac lab, a partial lab of LC 575s and LC 580s, and one lab of LCs. Some schools in the district have more up-to-date labs. One school has four full Power Mac labs, even though this teacher's school has none. Now it looks like they'll be spending the next two years in a holding pattern waiting for Windows.

Katy ISD is one of the highest rated districts in Texas. Our school is recognized and is applying for Blue Ribbon Status this year.

It looks like the same old argument: Everyone uses Windows. Between that and Dell's home court advantage (Dell is headquartered in Austin), it looks like Apple's number may be up in Katy ISD.

I hope the school has looked at the big picture and realizes they will need four times the technical support staff to keep all these Windows labs running. Field reports from students across the country indicate most Windows labs have around 25% of PCs down at any given time, while Mac labs seem to run on all burners.

The other problem is that once they've installed a base of PC techs, it will be virtually impossible to go back to Mac. They will fight for what they know and resist change.

I wish the teachers, students, and parents in Katy well if they push to keep Macs in the schools. After all, Apple has blazed the trail Microsoft is following with Windows. In other words, what the Mac OS is today, Windows will be in a few years.

So why not expose students to the better OS and keep support costs down?

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