The Turning of the Tide for Apple?

Man, I've been posting a lot recently, I don't know why. Maybe my mind is reinvigorated after a summer of mindless relaxation. Anyways, this post was an interesting observation from move-in.

The last two years I've worked move-in as part of my job, with the IT department here at Tulane. We basically hook up computers and stuff to the wireless network, install antivirus software, etc, but it's mostly a waste of time because Housing doesn't give us a prominent location and freshmen are more interested in meeting people on their floor and going partying than anything else.

This year was a definite shift though, out of the computers I saw, the majority were Mac, and significantly so. I'd guess 65-70%. I wonder what Apple did to convince college students to go for an unfamiliar Operating System on hardware that is quite overpriced. Did the Justin Long Mac ads really have a powerful effect? Is it the familiarity with iPods, iPhones, and iTunes? I'd be interested to see, but it was surprising. Two years ago it was probably 45%, PCs outweighed Macs a bit, but now it's firmly in Macs camp. Thankfully most of the computers I work on, those of faculty and stuff, are PCs. I don't like troubleshooting Macs.

I would assume this isn't a Tulane thing, that this is a trend growing across US universities and colleges. Will this have any effect on the corporate world, or will people just adjust to PCs for work? Tulane has modified some of our administrative software to work on Macs at the request of some of our professors, for example. I would imagine because of the corporate-friendly nature of Windows (Home/Professional versions, more customizable rights-restrictions, etc) that it will continue to remain the OS of choice for the business world, but for the first time since I've been alive, with young consumers hooked on Macbooks, iPods, and iPhones, Apple has a significant chance at regaining its' former market share.

I wonder what impact 7 will have on this. Vista, regardless of its' technical abilities or failures, was a commercial bomb. XP has held up well, but Microsoft is intent on phasing it out. I've been demoing 7 for a bit, we got a VLK for it at work, and I've been relatively pleased. It's more efficient than Vista, there are some real improvements in the UI, etc. More than market it to consumers, if Microsoft is to continue being the force it has been, they must convince the corporate market to upgrade to 7, which has thus far shunned Vista in favor of XP.