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- >POSITION 20,1900
- >SIDE Left
- >STYLE Heading
- Education
- >STYLE Sub
- The Acorn Fairy-tale
- >STYLE Body
- If you ask any acorn enthusiast what section of the computer market acorn has
- most control over, they will almost invariably say the Education sector. While
- this may be the case, the trend is that only smaller Primary schools are buying
- Acorn systems - usually A3000's through the computers for schools scheme
- and the larger secondary schools are being told in no uncertain terms that the
- best thing to do is buy the 'Industry standard' PC's. So Acorn's share in the
- market is being whittled away by the industry standard myth.
-
- >STYLE Sub
- Industry standard ?
- >STYLE Body
- My experience of industry standard is that manufacture's are so acutely aware
- of efficiency and value-for-money that they will spend a long time shopping
- around until they have found the correct software and platform for the job that
- needs to be done. This means that they often do not end up buying PC's. When
- you put this together with the rate of change and development in the computer
- industry it becomes obvious that by the time the students leave school, the
- industry standard will be gone or have changed. The thing to do then is try and
- decide which way the computer industry will go or what the operating systems
- of the future will be like, while this may be next to impossible it is quite clear
- that the operating systems are going to get faster, easier to use and more
- intuitive. Therefore it makes sense that you should chooses the system that
- is closest to this already. This part must be your own choice or recommendation
- but as a simple test why don't you go to an acorn show room and give an acorn
- a test, then go to a PC show room and test a PC. Which is easier and faster?
- I know what my answer is.
-
- >STYLE Sub
- Conspiracy!
- >STYLE Body
- As an aside, the education market has become so important to computer
- manufactures that one of IMB's policies was to get representatives to try and
- become governors of schools so that the school would buy IBM's. This
- recently happened to a nearby school.
- Infiltration into the heart of acorn's home market!
-
- >STYLE Sub
- Any opinions
- >STYLE Body
- If you would like to make a {contribution}16 to this page then this would be
- greatly appreciated. Thanks!