Our lives have been transformed by the widespread acceptance of PCs. They enhance our productivity, i mprove our access to information we want, and provide new opportunities for work and play. This remarkable convergence of PC and communications technologies blurs the traditional boundaries of markets, producers and customers, opening up many new opportunities for both the public and private sectors. If they accept public funds, schools must offer common access to all students and faculty. Students and faculty must also invest to compete, acquiring their own PCs for home and school.
Some schools require laptops as part of the student tuition plan.
The average service life of a PC today is less than three years. They can enjoy the social and personal learning opportunities on campus, carrying their hand-held computers anywhere, anytime and communicating with any device. The Palm PDA has gained market acceptance. In fact, many executives at colleges and universities use a PDA for nothing more than replacing their desktop calendars and keeping track of emails. The market is waiting for a basic device that will offer mobility, MS Office, eBooks, MS Office Synchronization with Exchange Server, and applications that interact with academic and administrative systems.