Apple to College Kids: We’ve Got An Offer for You
Imagine buying a Porsche and getting a free Harley-Davidson. Here’s a similar offer — though on a much smaller scale — from Apple to college students.
Indeed, college kids who buy a Mac can qualify to receive a free iPod nano. It’s a killer combo, no doubt, for Apple fans. The offer, available now on Apple’s Web site, reinforces two key IT trends in the higher-education space:
1. Although Dell leads the higher education sector in terms of market share, there’s no doubting Apple’s clout among incoming college students. As one CIO at a Manhattan college recently told The VAR Guy, “Apple is the one brand that counts with our students.”
2. The link between the iPod, iTunes and the Mac could make it increasingly difficult for newcomers to compete with Apple in the higher-education space. For instance, even early adopters of Dell’s Ubuntu Linux PCs concede that they can’t fully appease kids because Ubuntu lacks iTunes support.
It’s still a Windows World, folks. But Apple is certainly making more and more noise by cross-promoting Macs with iPods.
