Good News in the Face of Apple's "Death?" Reading this year's reports of Apple's imminent demise seems to have devolved from serious reporting to tabloid headlining ("Gil Amelio Taps Martians for System 8 Secrets!"). Despite the entertainment value, the Macintosh is still strong, especially in education channels. According to a survey by SIMBA Information, the number of educational software developers that chose Macintosh as the platform of choice jumped from 73 percent in 1995 to 86 percent in 1996. Apple's Education Solution Provider currently has about 200 members publishing educational software, compared to Microsoft's 114-member Windows School Connection program.

<http://www.simbanet.com/>

Other good news includes the shipment of the 26 millionth Macintosh (up one million since last August), bringing Apple's estimate of Mac users worldwide to more than 60 million (due to machines shared by several users). Also, for the fourth time in a row, PC World readers voted Macs as number one in reliability, and Apple's phone support as having the shortest hold time of any PC vendor. [JLC]

<http://www.pcworld.com/>