Apple Computer's iTunes might be stomping all over the competition, but there's one area in which competing services such as Napster are starting to beat Apple: schools. Despite Apple's legendary relationship with educational institutions, Napster in particular has signed a surprising number of deals with colleges and universities, providing students with lower prices on subscription-based services and a la carte music downloads. Case in point: The company's recent deal with the University of Washington and a partnership with Dell that will see participating schools running Napster services off of Dell servers. Of course, what Napster can offer that Apple can't is subscription-based services, which are seen as the future of digital music delivery. What I'd like to see, however, is Napster ratchet up its quality: Currently, its music offerings are stuck in the same 128Kbps swamp that iTunes users suffer with
