Apple has struck a deal with eight academic institutions around Ireland to enable students to get 10pc off the price of a MacBook or iMac and get a free iPod Touch.
Sources close to the company said that a similar arrangement exists for parents and teachers in second level and other third level institutions whereby students and teachers can avail of a discount of between 6pc and 8pc on the price of an iMac or MacBook and get a free iPod Touch.
The programme is open to ‘educational individuals’ everywhere and from today computer hardware will come installed with the latest Snow Leopard operating system.
Each machine will come with the iLive suite of applications that includes music, photography, video and publishing software plus the iWeb content management software.
The eight institutions that Apple has conducted the 10pc arrangement with include: University College Cork, Dublin Institute of Technology, the Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Dun Laoghaire, the National College of Art & Design, St Patrick’s College Drumcondra, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin and Dublin City University.
The most recent Gartner Research data claims Apple continues to maintain itself as the number one computer manufacturer in the Western Europe education market for Q1 2009 with a healthy 26.4pc of market share.
By John Kennedy
