Apple iPads, MacBook Airs Invade Schools, Colleges

Apple’s Q3 2012 quarterly results missed Wall Street’s expectations. But Apple iPad and MacBook Air sales into the education vertical —  K-12 schools, colleges and universities — are setting records. For VARs and IT consultants in the education vertical, supporting Apple tablets and notebooks is now a baseline requirement. Here’s the update.

Skeptical? Apple’s CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, offered these vertical market highlights during the company’s earnings call today.

• “We also experienced our best quarter ever for U.S. education institution Mac sales with Portables representing nearly three quarters of total Mac sales.”
• Rutherford County, North Carolina, purchased 6,000 MacBook Air’s to support its 21 century digital learning environment
• Pueblo, Colorado School District 70 staff will convert to MacBook Air.
• “The iPad continues to be a great success in the U.S. education market, with sales setting a new quarterly record and nearly doubling year-over-year to just under 1 million iPads.”
• “We achieved all-time record Mac sales to U.S. education institutions during the quarter [but] we sold more than twice as many iPads as Macs to U.S. education institutions.”
• Mansfield, Texas Independent School District has purchased 11,000 iPads. This fall every Mansfield High School student and teacher will receive an iPad under the district’s power of initiative.

The VAR Guy is impressed. He isn’t suggesting that VARs should “resell” Apple hardware into the education market. But education VARs certainly need to service and support those Apple devices. Apple’s ubiquity demands that.

And employers beware: Tomorrow’s hires could report for work demanding Apple hardware…