IBM Bundling Content With Laptops For Schools

from the seems-useful dept

Following on the success stories coming out of places like Maine with their program to give every student a laptop, IBM is working to bundle electronic content with their school laptops, so that they arrive complete with textbooks and over 2,000 works of literature. On top of that, all those books are searchable, meaning (in some ways) they have more features than traditional textbooks. Still, what I find odd about the article is that they repeatedly compare the costs of textbooks to the costs of computers - which isn't exactly a fair comparison, unless the cost of the content is free on the laptop. I doubt that the textbook publishing companies are letting IBM put their books on the machines for free. So, while price per actual book may be cheaper, the overall price, including the hardware is always going to be noticeably higher.
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  • identicon
    rur42, 27 Apr 2004 @ 7:50pm

    Bundling content with laptops for schools

    You can bet the content will be industry oriented with ads or advertorial content, much like the educational material provided by the food industry to home ec classes.

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