Hundreds of students flocked to the grand opening of the Apple Campus Store in Georgetown’s bookstore yesterday, lured by deep discounts, special promotions and the promise of a more convenient way to purchase Apple products.

The newly unveiled Apple section, located in the back of the first floor of the university bookstore, which is operated under contract with the university and owned by Follett Higher Education Group, sells a variety of Mac-compatible software in addition to Mac computers and devices, including the iPod but not the iPhone. Customers can use demonstration models of the iMac desktop and MacBook Pro laptop and, beginning in January, the campus store will also offer trained Apple technicians and repair services to assist customers with computer and Apple product troubles.

“It will basically be a functioning Apple Store for students right on campus. [For] anything you would usually go to an Apple Store to get, you are now able to simply walk to the Leavey Center – which is pretty exciting,” said Kendra Peters (MSB ’10), the Apple Campus Representative for the university.

Brian White (MSB ’12) said he would consider using Apple support over University Information Services support because Mac employees have been specifically trained to fix their products.

“If I had a Mac, I would probably just go to the Mac store [in the bookstore] because they are professionals and know what they are doing,” White said.

elanie Pitkin (SFS ’11) agreed that the Mac employees’ professional training would sway her toward using their support services.

“I definitely would consider using the Mac support [in the bookstore],” she said. “There was a Mac guy there [yesterday], who seemed to know what he was doing – he was just outnumbered [yesterday].”

As part of the two-day grand opening promotion yesterday and today, the bookstore offered to replace students’ headphones with Skullcandy models at no cost, distributed three hundred iTunes sample cards and served pizza and drinks.

Kelly Tucker, the Apple account executive for higher education in the Virginia area, said the student response was overwhelmingly positive.

“It was insane,” Tucker said. “We ran out of the headphones in the first 17 minutes.”

Though Peters said that the campus store’s inventory is limited compared to a full Apple Store, bookstore representatives stressed that the new section has a unique advantage – discounts. Apple Stores and the Apple Web site provide an education discount specifically for students. The Apple Store on campus offers lower prices than the education discount, according to Heath Maytaw, a Follett employee at the bookstore who plans to become a certified Apple Genius support agent next year.

“These are better than typical education prices,” Maytaw said. “These are discounted in addition to [the normal discounted education prices].”

The campus store is currently selling MacBook Air laptops to Georgetown students and staff for $1,299, while the education retail price is $1,699, according to the Apple Web site. The store is similarly discounting MacBooks and MacBook Pros while supplies last.

White said that he was impressed with the discounts and would have considered buying a new computer had he not just gotten a laptop before this semester.

“They had really good deals on the older MacBooks,” White said. “The MacBook Air was also discounted $400 – that is unbelievable.”

Despite the low prices, Pitkin said she would not consider buying a computer at the bookstore.

“It didn’t really seem like an official place to buy computers,” she said. “I thought [the Mac store] was going to be a bigger part of the bookstore – it was just in the back corner.”

Still, Gina Johnson, the general book manager of the bookstore, said that the significance of the grand opening is to some degree deliberately overstated. The bookstore has been selling all the same Apple products now available since October. The grand opening provided discounts that were not available before.

“We’d been selling Apple products since October,” Johnson said. “This is kind of a general announcement that says, `We’re here, we’ve got some special promotions going on.'”

Apple representatives emphasized their commitment to the campus store would extend beyond the grand opening.

“We do more than sell computers. We’re not just a vender,” Tucker said. “We want to make sure we have a relationship with the school and support them,” she said, adding that she has worked with University Information Services and Auxiliary Services in addition to the bookstore to develop and set up the store.

Jim Kuhlman, the director of bookstores at Georgetown, said that he has been very pleased to have an Apple store and their specialists in the bookstore.

“They’re really great people to work with,” he said.

Apple purchased a property on Wisconsin Avenue in 2007, but it has not yet constructed an Apple Store in Georgetown. According to the Washington Business Journal, Apple spokesperson Amy Barney said that Apple plans to open a store there eventually but cannot provide a timetable.

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