Apple, iPod, Windows, price, discount, laptops.

Across college campuses nationwide, students are increasingly purchasing Apple computers. At the University of Arizona, for example, sales are up 50% over last year. Salespeople attribute the increase to a variety of factors: the availability of Microsoft Office on the Apple platform, the Apple discount that gives a $200 rebate on the purchase of an Apple iPod (the MP3 music player) with the purchase of a laptop; the low entry-level price of an Apple laptop (they can be purchased for as low as $1,000), and the lower vulnerability of Apple computers to Windows-based viruses.

Some students, however, are moving in the opposite direction. Having learned about the company by purchasing an Apple iPod to play music, they are now considering buying a computer from Apple as well. Those students tend to buy laptops for their superior portability, much like the iPod. Indeed, while 74% of all new computer sales are Windows-based PCs, 53% of Apple's sales in the third quarter of last year were laptop computers.

(Updated November, 2004)