From the Dark Side--Why Some IT Directors Hate Macs

We know why some IT directors don't like Macs. And it isn't for the reasons given in this eSchool News article. It's for reasons far more personal, ones that we have cited many times. [Dana Baggett]

But it's not because teachers don't like using the technology, said Hayes: "There has never been a lack of interest in Macs from the teacher level." Rather, the real problem for Apple has been a lack of interest on the part of IT directors, many of whom have sought to standardize schools on the more popular Windows-based platform for simplicity's sake, she said.

Running on a single platform enables school IT personnel to alleviate compatibility hang-ups and reduces the number of headaches they have to contend with on a daily basis, she explained.

As if to underscore her point, the University of Miami on Aug. 31 announced that it has signed an exclusive agreement with Dell to standardize on Dell machines campus-wide. The agreement is expected to save the university about $2 million a year (see related story).

What? We checked on the Dell deal cited in the eSchool News article with some colleagues at the University of Miami where we used to be a faculty member. We know that UM has a big Mac community and that the Marine Science School is mostly Mac. So we would be shocked if the story were accurate. Well, it isn't--one more myth generated by the ignorant. You see, UM has been buying mostly Dells for those buying Wintels through the IT department for some time and the alternative has been a Mac. The deal noted in the article just "codifies" the Wintel purchases through IT with an exclusive Dell contract. Mac are not being replaced wholesale campus-wide to standardize on one platform as implied in the article. And if one buys directly off a research grant, one can still buy whatever Wintel or Unix box or Linux box or Mac one needs.