The University of Western Australia (UWA), which began teaching IT courses on the first Macs in the mid-eighties, has dropped the computers from its teaching programs, according to Australian IT. The university claims the cost of Apple hardware was the reason for the decision. “There was nothing about OS X we didn’t like, we just couldn’t really afford the hardware costs,” said the UWA’s senior lecturer in computer science and software engineering, Chris McDonald, who is also chair of the university’s Teaching and Learning committee. McDonald said a recent review indicated Macs were going to cost the university around two and a half times the cost of a PC per seat. “We just decided — and it was a sad decision — that we should be totally PC throughout and have each one running NT or XP and Linux.”
