You know, one of these days we're going to have some actual good news to report about Apple's education market share, at which time we'll probably keel over with massive coronaries all 'round and we'll wind up dead at the tender age of eleventy-something because the hover-ambulance will have been delayed due to a skyway blocked by teeming flocks of flying pigs. Until then, though, it's business as usual for our heroes in Cupertino, i.e. yet another market share drop in the hallowed halls of academia. MacNN pointed us in the direction of a SunSpot.net article which reveals that Apple's slice of the K-12 schoolin' pie (based on the number of schools polled who plan to purchase Macs next year) comes out to 21%, according to Quality Education Data-- which is great next to Apple's overall share of computer sales, but downright sucky compared to the 41% in education it held back in '96.

Hang on a sec-- we already covered this, didn't we? About two weeks back? Holy Hannah, it's finally happened: we're officially so jaded about constantly hearing declining market share numbers for Apple in education, we barely even notice when we're seeing the same data regurgitated by two different sources. So the good news is that this is the exact same bad news we saw a couple of weeks ago. Woo-hoo!! Break out the bubbly!

Or, indeed, if you're not the type to celebrate the fact that nobody's shown Apple to have declined still further in the past fortnight, you could always try holding out until the company gives us something real to cheer about, education-wise-- but we wouldn't necessarily recommend it. After all, for years now we've been continuously force-fed that line about how Apple's working like gangbusters to reclaim its education throne, and frankly the results have been, shall we say, somewhat less than spectacular. Despite victories like Henrico County and educationy moves like the purchase of PowerSchool, things most certainly do not seem lots better than they were a few years ago.

Now, the manifold issues determining Apple's success or failure in the education market are complex and diverse-- which is why we've decided that from now on we're going to give our heads a break and reduce all those factors to the single overriding factor of price. As gross oversimplifications go, you have to admit that it's not without its special charm: Apple is getting spanked by Dell because schools are buying whatever big-name systems are cheapest, and those aren't Macs. Easy, right?

Keeping that premise squarely in mind, then, we urge you to check out an article over at Low End Mac, which was brought to our attention by faithful viewer Paul Lee. In it, science teacher Jeff Adkins makes a compelling argument that Apple could start reversing its market share loss by selling an education-targeted lab computer-- a real education-targeted lab computer, not the eMac. Picture a revamped Cube, back from the deep freeze and packing a G3 processor, a healthy base amount of RAM, a VGA port, and a $300 sticker price. Yes, $300. Now that might start tacking the points onto Apple's share percentage.

What, you don't think it could be done? On the contrary, we wouldn't be surprised if Apple could actually break even on such a system, since the up-front cost of design is already paid for, and component-wise we're basically talking about a $999 iBook sans the pricey LCD panel. Besides, given the importance of the education market, we figure that even if Apple would take a loss on each unit sold, getting that market share number growing again is so crucial, that'd be a price well-paid. Then again, we've long felt that if Apple were actually serious about getting back into the schools, it would've pulled a billion dollars out of its Big Pile O' Cash™ and earmarked it for use solely to cover obscene discounts for education purchasing, but hey, that's just us...

Meanwhile, the Mac that Apple specifically designed for the education market (that there eMac) is proving to be the absolute worst example of quality assurance and workmanship the company could have chosen to parade in front of school buyers. We haven't heard much first-hand from people bitten by the "raster shift" problem described over at MacFixIt-- in which the bottom third of the display is black, the Dock appears just above the blackness, and the top third of the Desktop would be hovering several inches above the unit-- but if it's truly as epidemic as it sounds, there's a large contingent of eMac owners sitting around staring at a screen that looks like it's jumped a third of the way through the top of the CRT as if to escape.

Now, the problem itself is actually kinda cute, and lends itself to all kinds of little jokes about how Mac OS X is just trying to distance itself from the eMac's cheap motherboard or whatever, but unfortunately this problem is reportedly so widespread, it's almost something to panic about. Reports of the rate of failure vary, but some resellers are claiming to see a between 15% and 60% eMac return rate, mostly due to video failure like the raster shift issue. 60%?! Sweet jumping cats with bells on! That drives through Unacceptable, goes straight on past Utterly Shocking, and checks into the Oh My God Inn in Completely Unbelievable, Arizona. If the reports weren't so widespread, we'd never believe a word of it; seriously, when was the last time you heard of even a crappy El Cheapo Wintel manufacturer with a product failure rate anywhere near that high?

On the plus side, though, with the Jingle Bells and Whistles promotion, you can now pick up an eMac for the low, low price of just $999 after rebate. That's an excellent deal for a complete G4-based system, and really, just how much do you use the top third of your screen anyway? Oh, sure, it's got the menu bar in it, but does that really make it so gosh-darned important? After all, that's what command key equivalents are for. We figure, heck, as long as you can play with that cool magnification feature in the Dock, that's pretty much the only reason anybody really buys a Mac, right? So, enjoy.

And in Off-Topic Theater to kick off the weekend, can we just say that we placed our faith in entirely the wrong judge to provide us with the highest quality standard in Redmondcentric antitrust entertainment? We always figured that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly would have had us rolling in the aisles, what with wielding immense power over the fate of Microsoft and also having an inherently funny name. And sure, we did get a few giggles out of the esteemed judge' s excessively K-sound-laden moniker, but man did she fall flat on that whole "Redmond Justice" thing. Letting the company pretty much walk? Seriously, how is that funny? The woman clearly needs some better material.

Now, Judge Motz on the other hand, this guy is on. He's currently presiding in one of the larger lesser-known "Redmond Justice" spinoffs starring Microsoft and longtime rival Sun. And get this: not only is "J. Frederick Motz" nearly as funny a name as "Colleen Kollar-Kotelly" (say it soft and it's almost like praying), but he also knows how to milk a case to keep an audience hooked. The man can work a crowd, we tell you; just check out this Reuters article, which reports that Judge Motz flat-out compared Microsoft's attempts to cripple Java in Windows to-- get this-- "the 1994 knee-clubbing of Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan." He shoots, he SCOOOOORES!!

For those of you who find Motz's name a shade familiar, you should; he's the judge who tossed out Microsoft's "generous offer" to settle a hundred or so private antitrust suits by donating PCs and free copies of Windows to the nation's poorest schools. (Because, as we all know, nothing relieves monopoly abuses like entrenching said monopoly still further.) You do understand what this means, don't you? It means that in J. Frederick Motz we've found a judge with intelligence, a funny name, and a willingness to make tasteless pop culture references in court. Oh, sure, he's no Judge Jackson, and indeed Motz isn't expected to grant Sun a preliminary injunction in the Case of the Poisoned Java, but he is leaning toward forcing Microsoft to include a pristine version of Java in every copy of Windows, so there's that. So whaddaya think? J. Frederick Motz, Patron Judiciary of AtAT?