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UK Schools Warned Off Microsoft Deal
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Oct 28, 2007 06:12 PM
from the do-not-sign-on-that-dotted-line dept.
from the do-not-sign-on-that-dotted-line dept.
rs232 sends in a BBC piece on the UK computer agency Becta advising schools against signing up for a Microsoft educational license because of alleged anti-competitive practices. "The problem was that Microsoft required schools to have licenses for every PC in a school that might use its software, whether they were actually doing so or running something else." We have discussed Becta's role in British education here several times as they have acted as a watchdog warning of perceived Microsoft excesses.
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News: UK Schools Told to Dump Microsoft 646 comments
kubla2000 writes "The current issue of the Times Educational Supplement is running an article in which they cite a report by the British Educational Communications and Technology Association telling primary and secondary schools in the UK to dump Microsoft Operating systems and products in order to save millions. In a report to be published next week, obtained by The TES, Becta will highlight schools which have turned to free software instead of the market leader's products. Becta does not name Microsoft in its analysis. But almost all schools use some of the company's products. Their conclusion? Schools running OSS are saving 24% on average per pc versus those running proprietary systems."
[+]
Technology: UK Schools At Risk of Microsoft Lock-In 162 comments
Robert writes "UK schools and colleges that have signed up to Microsoft Corp's academic licensing programs face the significant potential of being locked in to the company's software, according to an interim review by Becta, the UK government agency responsible for technology in education. The report also states that most establishments surveyed do not believe that Microsoft's licensing agreements provide value for money." In a separate report, Becta offered the opinion that schools should avoid Vista for at least another year, since neither Vista nor Office 2007 offers any compelling reasons for schools to upgrade.
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Sighing up (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Few read the articles, many don't read even the summary (see the recent "Apple Makes $831 On Each AT&T iPhone"), few make use of the preview button, and our editors don't read the submissions. I wonder what it is any of us are doing here?
Slashdot is the graffiti on technology's bathroom wall.
Discuss.
Can't...help...myself! Arrghh! (Score:3, Interesting)
'Though They paint these walls to stop my pen, the Shithouse Poet has struck again!'
I cannot properly attribute this, but I did see it in my high school restroom in 1974.
BTW, that line of yours would make a great
"I wonder what it is any of us are doing here?"
Yeah, it can seem like that quite often, but for me...
I have learned some neat stuff here, some not so neat stuff(goatse I'm looking at you-aghhh!), and have heard a lot of useless s
Happened in NZ with MS Office on Macs... (Score:3, Insightful)
Clicketh [slashdot.org]
Given the timestampdiff between the two it looks like it is taking people a while to wake up to the reality of Microsoft licencing.
Re:Sighing up (Score:5, Funny)
I was going to moderate the parent, but there's no "-1 Drunk Ramblings" option...
Parent
no "-1 Drunk Ramblings" (Score:3, Funny)
Educational License? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Educational License? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Hmm... again, the article is.... slashdotish (Score:5, Informative)
THE OTHER ONE IS: You pay for all your machines OR users (you can choose the license type). Say , you have 30 users. You pay some ammount of money. Then you have the right to install every MS product for those users in every machine in the university/college/scool, etc AND at home as well. Of course, if you dont use MS at home you are still paying, but this is the agreement. And the prices are MUCH lower than on Select. But nobody is forcing you to agree with this license. Use the old goos Select (pay by installed produts) and thatä's all and well. Of course, this being slashdot, we need our daily article odf env^z^z^z... hate.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why haven't schools switched to all Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why haven't schools switched to all Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Why haven't schools switched to all Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why haven't schools switched to all Linux? Linux teaches students about computers Windows teaches students how to use Windows If someone learned UNIX 10 years ago, they could pick up a modern Linux distro and have little trouble with it, if you take someone who learned Windows 98 and put them on a Vista system, they would be confused and have no clue how to do the most basic things. Same thing with Office, if a UNIX student learned on vi, they could edit text files with ease on a Linux system, take someone who learned on Word 97 and put them on a Word 2007 machine and they would be confused. Not to mention practically anyone knows how to check e-mail, surf the web and get around an operating system, that doesn't get you ahead, now if someone knows PHP, Perl and Server Administration, they could be an entry-level sysadmin for a small company, while the other student would be more or less a data entry clerk, Windows leads to more dependence on MS products, Linux leads to more solutions and more opportunities.
I must take exception to this. Yes, if someone knows PHP, Perl and Server Administration they could be an entry level sysadmin. Or they could not know anything about them (well PHP and Server stuff) and become a physicist like me. This is a school setting we're talking about, and they have to train more than just computer users. Students shouldn't have to learn vi in order to type out a book report, nor should they need to know about server administration in order to use a web browser to research said report. The computer is a tool, something to make things easier, not an end unto itself. I think we forget that on Slashdot sometimes.
Speaking from experience, a person who can use Word 97 will have little difficulty adapting to Word 2007, nor will they have much difficulty using OpenOffice for all of the basic stuff that 95% of us use it for. You are correct that Windows teaches someone how to use Windows, much as *nix teaches someone how to use another *nix flavour. The person who picked up Windows 95 is not going to have trouble with WinXP, and the person who learned Unix ten years ago will pick up Ubuntu just fine today.
Much like we don't need to understand how a car works to use it, we can be perfectly productive computer users without knowing about the nitty gritty details. Would it help? Sure, sometimes, but we have to weigh the time spent learning those details against the time that could be spent learning other useful things (physics, perhaps?). Switching to *nix just to expose people to the internals of a computer OS isn't necessarily doing them any favours.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think schools should take advantage of this and focus on using cross-platform software in the classroom whenever possible. Doing so almost guarantees that students will be able to use the same software at home that they use at s
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I think this is true only for very small values of true. Yes, Windows teaches someone how to use Windows, but chances are high that years later they will, if bright and attentive, accumulated a collection of Windows-specific
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This week someone in my department had a problem reading and editing equations in a Word DOC file in OpenOffice. And then he tried genuine Microsoft Word and still had problems. Turned out the equations were done using 'Mathtype', some extra add-on for Word. "Doing it wrong!", I cried, "why is anyone writing papers chock-fu
Re:Why haven't schools switched to all Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Linux does not teach students about computers ... (Score:3, Insightful)
No. Linux and Windows are equivalent in the sense that neither teaches students about computers, they both teach students about an operating system.
if a UNIX student learned on vi, they could edit text files with ease on a Linux system
Again, Linux and Windows are far more alike than you claim. The student who learned DOS EDIT can open a console and run EDIT under Windows.
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Why haven't schools switched to all Linux? Linux teaches students about computers Windows teaches students how to use Windows.
I tried to deconstruct this sentence, and can't really get anywhere with it.
Operating systems are just that; systems software that facilitates the use and configuration of the hardware it is running on. I don't think that there is an inherent element within any OS which 'teaches' anything.
Obviously individuals develop preferences, and one's experience may even lead to a greater understanding of systems' architecture (or similar) using a particular OS. Certainly my experience was that using *nix of var
Since when is Microsoft the law? (Score:5, Insightful)
> "The problem was that Microsoft required schools to have licenses for every PC in a school that might use its software, whether they were actually doing so or running something else."
Microsoft can't "require" this. Same as the BSA or CAAST can't just show up at your doorstep and "require" anything. Not even a "license audit."
Good for Becta.
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They can and do if you license the software. Read your license. You gave permission. In attempting to revoke the license, I am dropping the software licenses which grant permission.
That may or may not be true for schools. It's certainly not true for consumers, since consumer rights laws in Europe are much stronger than in the US. Unfair clauses and ones that you didn't have the chance to negotiate are automatically discarded. See for example: http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/before_you_buy/think_of/u [consumerdirect.gov.uk]
Intel Macs (Score:5, Insightful)
A UK School Sys Admin's Response... (Score:5, Insightful)
Truth of the matter is I have approximately 2% of the school budget made available to me; this equates to about £150,000. Using that money, I run a 2000+ user network, with nearly 750 attached devices (thin clients, fat clients, printers, etc).
I run an almost entirely Microsoft shop - 2000/2003/Exchange/XP/XPe, with Office 2003 / Encarta / Project as well. In terms of non-MS OS, take your pic from Debian, Thinstation and a host of Linux-based thin client devices (Neoware, Wyse, etc).
My Microsoft licensing costs come in at around £12,000 per year, this also includes my terminal service licensing. Is that a lot? Not really - the buy price for 650+ copies of XP, Office, plus CALs for Exchange, 2003 and Terminal Services is prohibatively high imho.
BECTA can complain about the terms of the agreement, and suggest we spend our money 'up front', but unless they are going to provide funding, I'm afraid to say I'll stick with the Schools Agreement for now.
I'd love to have the money to buy outright, don't get me wrong. But for a school with a relatively low income (ie our students come from a high socio-economic area) I simply can't afford to do it - £12,000 a year is however a manageable cost.
Re:A UK School Sys Admin's Response... (Score:5, Informative)
What would it cost to migrate, in terms of staff / student training? What would it cost to get my two technicians up to spend on OSS? What would it cost to migrate?
The truth of the matter is there are three ICT staff at the college - myself and two technicians. Running a 2000+ user network is one thing; running that network and migrating to a completely new way of doing things is something you don't undertake lightly.
I'm getting there - slowly. I'm pushing for thin clients to start with - reducing our dependancy on 'the latest and greatest' hardware. The next thing will be to replace the 2003 Terminal Services with linux-based ones. One step at a time - thats the plan.
Parent
Will Linux replace Windows? (Score:5, Interesting)
I just saw that Tesco UK is selling Ubuntu PCs [tesco.com] as well! This is a first in England.
For those that don't live here Microsoft is the computer. For about 10 years I have never heard of anyone else using Linux in the UK (I mean walking around or in real life. Not over the internet), then this year suddenly walking around the university everyone's laptops have Ubuntu or Fedora or SUSE. Even my university has SUSE in one of their labs. Now that is a first!
There was a piece from 2005 [guardian.co.uk] in which it talks about the government seriously thinking of switching all its software to open source.
Re:I wonder what software they use? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you buy licenses per-computer where needed, then the school has troubles figuring out what licenses it owns and where they are being used.
If (say) 90% of a school's computers are going to run the MS software, and MS is offering a 20% discount for site licensing, the school wins both in money and in admin hassle by taking the site license, even though some of the computers won't use the paid-for software.
(In this particular case, there is an additional complication that the
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I know you were trolling, but I have to thank you anyhow. I hadn't thought to look for a touch typing tutor on Linux, but now I have and KTouch looks like it's pretty decent.
Re:Linux (Score:5, Funny)
What? The regular 'touch' command isn't good enough for you?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Haven't you ever known somebody who speaks mostly because they like the sound of their own voice? Same principle applies to the text from their fingers.
Re:Linux (Score:5, Informative)
Actually the vast majority of that type of software runs pretty flawlessly under wine.
Its not generally complex software. I'm sure you could find exceptions, but for every exception that didn't work, you could probably easily find software that did. Its not like there are a shortage of 'doodling' and 'trivia' games to try.
That said, my daughter's kindergarten class has a classic iMac with OS9 on it. And I have no issues with that. Its a suitable machine for what they are doing with it.
It would be absurd for them to have to license XP Professional for it, even if it is a discounted copy.
Parent
Re:Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Sort of, kind of, not really? Schools are supposed to teach children skills that they can apply in the real world. One of these skills is keyboarding, and honestly, how many typing training packages have you seen on 'nix? Or even Mac?
Kids' software needs are significantly different from that of adults, with the possible except of a good Office suite, which everybody needs. Where's the equivalent of your doodling software, trivia games, and all that stuff you would find in a primary school computer lab?
While I agree MS's tactics here are pretty low, it doesn't immediately lead us to "switch to Linux", because honestly it's not a viable alternative.
On the other hand, Apple has traditionally had the support of children's software publishers. Maybe they can leverage this situation to their advantage...
When I was in school, the only difference between the computers we used and the ones that adults used was that kids were at the keyboards and the particular programs we wanted to use. The typing programs were on computers that were probably 13 or 14 years old, and all of them were still monochrome. Most of them were mid 80s era ibms.
As for typing, there is always http://tuxtype.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] I haven't used it, but it looks like it is in a similar vein to the typing program I used at home.
Typing programs
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So while lazy, cheap teachers get the free windows and M$ office at home they a
Bad idea... (Score:3, Funny)
Won't anybody PLEASE think of the children???
Re:Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
There, fixed that for you.
Kids who use IM clients, text messaging on cell phones, etc. develop a very early crutch on short forms, symbols, letters in place of words, acronyms for anything common, a complete lack of syntax and a dozen other nightmares preventing the proper development of language skills. The younger they're exposed to this the worse off they are.
My younger brother is guilty of all of the above and I insist that when he talks to me via IM he use proper sentence structure or I'll ignore him. I don't want to hear about "2day wen i went 2 da part wit ma bffls ... " and it serves no educational purpose to him or his friends to continue in that fashion.
Parent
Re:Linux (Score:5, Informative)
For languages:
For Physics:
For Math:
For geography:
For music:
For Mind-Mapping:
- Semantik [kde-apps.org]
Anyhow, you get the gist. As someone who has taught in both High School and College and whose wife tutors middle schoolers, I can't say that I've seen anything they are running that can't be replaced by linux based code (or in rare cases, by Windows code running on Wine).Parent
Re:Linux (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
When I decided that I'm sick of that setup, I tried to boot Slax but discovered that the BIOS is set to boot from the harddisk first, and is password protected. So I unplugged the machine, and using a broken mechanical pencil managed to pop to battery off the motherboard through air vents in the locked case. Five minutes later, hehehe, I opened the now-default-settings BIOS, set it to boot from CD, and away I was.
Moral:_ANYTHING_ can be bypassed so long as the intruder is determined, and having physical access to the hardware (locked case or not) certainly helps. Linux probably might have helped prevent me from using the disk on key, but it would not have helped prevent me from defeating the BIOS.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I have seen laptops, that if you popped the battery off to tamper with the BIOS, or if you forgot your password, you have to ship the unit in to have the BIOS reset. I am not sure if anyone has found an exploit on those yet, but that is a step in the direction of security.
And, yep, it is darned inconvenient for the average Joe. It has a home in the corporate and government worlds though.
InnerWeb
Re:One of those tricks (Score:5, Interesting)
One student at the high school I was administering discovered that even with our more prohibitive settings (many/most of those alternatives were disabled) he could simply create a shortcut to C: on a floppy disk and he was home free.
Sure, I was pissed at him, but at the same time I was impressed with the elegant simplicity of it all.
Parent
Re:One of those tricks (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:One of those tricks (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Pulling out the network cable about 5 seconds after logging in usually does the trick.
Windows then defaults to a 'allow all' state.
Yes Windows is fully scriptable but it will only allow you to lock down the really obvious things.
They are extremely simple to work around if your determined enough.
Hint: At a school, there will be plenty of bored kids who are determined.
Re:Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Take it from me; teachers don't administrate, and when they do all they do is mess things up. Usually pretty horribly at that. Teachers in public (elementary, secondary) schools tend towards the computer illiterate side of the fence. Some to the degree of simple uncertainty, some to the degree where they'll order a student suspended because they changed their desktop background - that's the outright fear category right there.
We've had teachers inform us, the lowly know-nothing network administrators (see, we weren't University Edumucated so what could we really know anyways?) that their lab was working PERFECTLY the day before, that NOTHING had changed, except somehow the computers wouldn't turn on anymore. Yes, of course they're plugged in! I checked it personally!
Yes, the power bars were unplugged from the wall outlets. He was correct though; the computers were in fact plugged into the power bars.
As for software administration, hoo-boy, you don't even want to go near that one.
Security? What of the teacher who used to perpetually walk from his math class to the computer lab across the hall and leave his online bank and investment site LOGGED IN all through 2nd period?
Or even common sense. Like why I, a male network administrator, would want access to the girl's phys-ed office (not the change room, the office, where the computer connected to the dead printer was).
Parent
Re:This is unbelievable (Score:4, Interesting)
An educational establishment has lots of PCs running various versions windows and various versions of various software some MS, some none MS, some legit, some pirate. This is a management nightmare but paying regular prices to upgrade everything would be cost prohibitive. MS comes along and offers windows and office at a very steep discount and with the right to use any version you want (the windows OS part is upgrade/downgrade only but since virtually all machines come with an OEM windows license that is not really a major issue).
However to get the products at this discount they have to sign up to terms that are not very nice. The license cost is based on some factor other than the number of machines running windows (for schools I belive it is total number of PCs, for universities I think it is total students or something like that). So there is no financial incentive to move individual machines to free software. Further the deals are often subscription based so the institution has to keep paying even if they have no desire to upgrade.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Nope.
The education system has a responsibility to teach it's kids skills for the future. Absent an actual time machine, that means predicting what they will be using in the future and giving them the best start you can from that information.
On that front, education fails miserably in almost all countries when it comes to Computer Science.
I was "officially" taught, between 1985 and 2000, BBC Micros, BBC BASIC, Windows 3.1 and (in the last year of University) Java. By the time I was