Apple in education

So, in my never-ending quest for yummy statistics, I've been collecting some info, in Curio naturally, on Apple's education market. I've got a ton of links and notes jotted down over the past year and I like where things are going.

I'm quite excited about two recent events:

1. BusinessWeek suggests that college students should buy Macs.
2. Apple has an awesome promotion: buy a Mac, get a free iPod nano. Granted there are probably only 14 students out there that don't own iPods, but it's a good tie-in with their most popular product.

Elsewhere, I learned that, at the end of 2004, the Mac market share in universities was around 14% which is pretty sweet compared to its share of the overall market. And Apple's Dec 2005 10-K said they are experiencing a 21% annual growth on college sales and 11% growth on K-12 sales. These are really fantastic growth rates.

It's good that Apple is putting more marketing zing into the academic market. The famous iPod halo effect is certainly having a good impact, but I like these more direct pushes.

And I love how Walt Mossberg (WSJ), David Pogue (NYT), and now BusinessWeek are cheerleaders for the Mac as well. Welcome aboard BusinessWeek!