In fourth Grade my elementary school got it’s first computers.  They were the state of the art amazing Apple II Computers.  These amazing machines allowed you to type and correct mistakes, without starting all over, and create cool looking banners with Print Shop.  It seemed that Mac had a strong hold on the education market early on, especially in the elementary sector.  This trend continued through my high school years, where I spent my time programming in basic and pascal on our Apple IIe’s.  There was a crack in the dam, when our school purchased a PC lab for the CAD program my senior year.  Soon high schools colleges, and businesses were dominated by the PC.  But Apple despite inferior technology at the time held strong in the Elementary School market.  Apple was nearly dead with a fledgling user base of dedicated fanatics that still swear up and down that pre-OSX operating systems were better than Windows XP.  Based on the frequent crashes an multiple systems  with my Macs I would respectfully disagree with these fanatics.  Finally the Elementary Schools got some sense and realized that they were wasting money on Macs, and started making the shift to PC’s  But Apple still had some fight left in them.  The iPod was introduced and widely accepted as the music player of choice, and with this significant influx of cash they transformed the there sub par Hardware and Software into the Modern powerhouse of computing.  Consumers are flocking to Mac in record numbers, and businesses are beginning to shift.  But what about the strong base of Elementary schools,  Well Mac labs continue to be replaced by PC’s.  Finally Mac has the best product out there, and it the schools are dropping it like flies.  In reality, I understand why.  Schools have begun to realize that Apple does not have a competitive price. I can put together a computer that is component for component identical or superior to Mac technology for about half of what Apple charges.  Software is much more available for PC than Mac, especially in regards to open source tools.  It is easier and more affordable to find PC techs.  You can save a lot of money going the PC route.  But it does seem a little ironic that schools stuck with Apple until they produced a good product and then jumped ship.