GOOD RIDDANCE!
Under most recent Cheryl's tenure at Apple, their education marketshare has dropped dramtically and their presence around schools has been dramatically reduced as well. 3 1/2 years ago, I saw the local sales rep or SE at least every six 1 8 weeks in some capacity and now I rarely(1-2 times a year and mainly at large conferences) see anyone from Apple with the sole exception of a single local SE who helps me run an Apple education users group.
In a time where it was critical to solidify existing Mac schools, the sales folks under her leadership, only paid attention to large accounts and ignored the small ones. Almost 3/4 of those small ones have recently replaced their aging Macs with Windows machines. As a matter of fact, almost all of the districts I work with who still use Macs are lead by folks who are career educators. Almost all of the districts with Tech coordinators from business have quickly turned their districts away from the mac and towards Windows.
If whe would have recognized a simple fact (solidify existing Mac schools, and they will buy more Macs down the road) and had acted upon it, Apple's marketshare would not have plunged as it did.
Sadly, it's really too late for Apple in Education...
unless they have one hell of an impressive product to bring to schools.
Mac OS X and the wonderful iApps by themselves isn't enough. The great multimedia capabilites are selling a few Macs to Windows districts but really nothing of any significance. Most Windows junkies don't have any idea of that Macs & PC's can peacefully coexist and that NT and 2000 servers provided very good services to Mac clients(someof them just don't want to know that they work) which helps keep Appel from making many inroads.
There are just too many folks from outside of education now inside the schools running the tech departments as though it was an IT business. Many of avid fans and defenders of Apple in the schools are retiring and replaced by 25+ year olds who want to run the whole show(which they lack the opportunity to do in business)
I am wishful some else who really "get's" technology in education will take over her role(If apple hasn't already picked out some fine manager with an MBA instead of an MA or M. Ed or even Ed. D)
