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Apple Licensing Changes Affect Education
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These are trying times, no question about it. So I can understand where Apple is coming from in raising the cost to purchase OS X for educational licensing. Again, things just cost more these days.
Sadly though, is the fact that this is likely to come at the worst possible time for many students already too cash strapped to be expected to pick up the difference. Still, it is now going to be a cost of going to school and using Apple products.
At the end of the day, I think Apple may end up hurting their public perception with all of this. Considering the shortage of money most people are experiencing these days, I think Apple might find that their changes are not going to be well received.
One Comment
Matt Powers
October 3rd, 2009
at 10:50am
Schools already pay a premium for the Mac hardware. I have always felt like the price of iLife (at the least) was built into the cost of the Mac hardware. It seems that Apple is being greedy. Apple has always been a big supporter of education — now it is just another market to exploit. The other big problem with Apple’s new software subscription model is that is an all or nothing proposition. You have to cover all your computers under the program — even if they cannot run the most current version of OS or iLife. Economically, it also doesn’t make sense. Nobody is going to pay $35 annually for iWork (you can get MS Office for $56), iLife and the OS update - especially since Apple famously does not provide a roadmap for upgrades on these products. Subscription models have always been a rip-off. I am disappointed that Apple feels it needs to go down this path and forget that it is a hardware company and not like Microsoft, a software company. Include, iLife, iWork and the OS upgrades for free and it will sell even more computers.