Don't get us wrong-- just because Steve didn't have any hot new products to show off at NECC, that doesn't mean there wasn't any actual news going on. Those of you who were hoping for new iMacs, the rebirth of the eMate, or Steve's onstage dramatic reading of Ashton Kutcher's heartwrenching Oscar-worthy monologue from "Dude, Where's My Car?" were sorely disappointed, but those of us with more realistic expectations at least came away with some encouraging usage stats. For instance, we all know that PowerSchool isn't an Apple-developed product, but then again, in some ways neither is iTunes, iMovie, or Mac OS X, for that matter. So we still take it as a good sign when Apple announces that PowerSchool now boasts another "nearly 500,000 students."

Yes, pretty much the only actual announcement at this morning's Stevenote revealed that three more school districts have signed on to use PowerSchool, Apple's recently-acquired student information system that "gives teachers, administrators, and districts the ability to easily and cost-effectively manage student records and make data-driven decisions to improve performance of their schools while allowing parents to track their children's progress in real time." (In other words, if little Johnny wants to change his D to a B, the days of faking Teacher's handwriting are over; he's going to have to learn the ins and outs of compromising the security of network servers, which is a far more marketable job skill than petty analog forgery anyway.)

The latest districts to hop on the PowerSchool bus are: California's Fremont Union High School District (five schools, roughly 9,000 students); the Archdiocese of Baltimore (100 schools, 37,000 students); and the biggie-- Chicago Public Schools, with a whopping 601 schools and over 434,000 students. That's right, people; apparently every single public school in the City of Big Shoulders will soon be using PowerSchool to manage its student records. Hopefully landing such a huge account will help Apple persuade other districts that PowerSchool has enough "oomph" for them, as well. And then Apple's real motive for buying PowerSchool kicks into gear: suddenly the company's got its foot in the door to sell a slew of hardware along with its student records system. "Would you like a side order of iBooks with that PowerSchool, sir?" Once that happens, booting Mike Dell off the education throne is just a hop, skip and a psychotic bawling tantrum away.