14 DAY TRIAL // Just days ago, Apple announced the educational iMac that was to replace the aged eMac, last of their CRT-based machines. While initially the machine was available for individual students and teachers, now it seems that Apple has changed its mind.
This week, the US$899 educational iMac was retired for individual students and teachers and replaced with?nothing. Apple has made no comment on this, except for saying that the change took place on Wednesday.
It is unclear why Apple made this move. One explanation might be that the low cost iMac was never intended to be available to individuals, and the only reason it was initially was a blunder on Apple's part that they have now rectified. The other possibility is that the educational store was overwhelmed by a hoard of people wanting to buy the cheap model and Apple might have grown fearful that it could cannibalize the sales of the regular iMac models.
Of the two, the second theory seems more plausible, however, even though the educational iMac is a very sweet offer, that does not necessarily imply that it would cannibalize the sales of the regular version, but rather that there is a huge pent up demand of a cheap Mac that has a monitor, keyboard and mouse.