School Software Licenses Under Review

Tony writes "ZDNet asks the question: 'Does Microsoft Campus give good value for money?' Its good to see a review of the dominant software, but the review is likely to lead to no or little changes, so the real question would be 'Is the review worth the money being spent on it?'."

Comments

As an IT manager in a UK primary school...

[TehHustler]

...I can answer that question.

No.

Most of the Local Educational Authorities are in bed with Microsoft. Schools are free to do their own thing if they require, but doing so means you lose out on perks from the LEA such as other free software and support.

It is much easier for them if all the schools are running the same kit and software because it means they can all support things much easier (think IT helpdesks who are knowledgable in JUST the disciplines they need) and it helps them secure bulk deals. And even then, the savings aren't that great.

Re:As an IT manager in a UK primary school...

[TubHarsh]

It is much easier for them if all the schools are running the same kit
I would agree that it is much easier to support if all schools are running the same, but if they have to neglect other software concerns such as security, they should consider switching.

In some colleges and universities in the US (which are also mostly in bed with Microsoft), IT managaers are switching pre installed web browsers on college ownewd computers to Firefox.

In a few instances like Pennsylvania State Univ. telling Students to chuck IE, the school can even influence which software the students use.

If the IT owners at these schools see a tangible benefit to switching from a Microsoft Product to a non-Microsoft Product they will do so.

Re:As an IT manager in a UK primary school...

[Mad Merlin]

But by switching they neglect great deals like a free porche bundled with purchase of a million licenses. As long as OSS can't give out free porches as bonus to government-funded purchases, we're on a lost position.

So... take the money you didn't spend on a million software licenses, and buy a couple thousand Porches? I fail to see how buying proprietary software works out for the better here.

Maybe if I sell you a copy of RHEL 4 for $200,000 and throw in a free Porche, would that make it better?

Re:As an IT manager in a UK primary school...

[jimicus]

The way it works in a lot of public sector organisations (schools in particular) is the person who spends the money (and therefore decides what to spend it on) is quite often not the person who has to deal with any fall-out.

Re:As an IT manager in a UK primary school...

[vtcodger]

As a retired US school IT guy let me say that there are several issues here: One is operating system. Another is other products -- mostly office suite. A third is standardized reports.

The OS is fairly clear cut. A school in the US simply has to be able to run MSDOS and Windows software. There are 20 years plus of legacy 'stuff' out there that are important to the school -- attendance, grades, stupid bureacratic reports, standardized test scoring, Mario Teaches Typing, etc. They often run only on MS operating systems (and it is often a struggle to get them to run there). There may come a time in the not too distant future when Macs and Linux will run this stuff routinely via emulation or WINE. Great -- but that's not today. In addition, in many countries a copy of Windows must purchased with the machine notwithstanding that is a clear violation of the most basic antitrust principles.

Office Suite products are a different issue. Power Point a pretty good product. Schools need it or something like it. Count it as a plus for Microsoft. Word and Excel OTOH are far too damn complicated for most educational uses. (If you ask me, they are far too damn complicated for most non-educational uses also). Can I use them? Sure. Do I use them? Hardly ever. I Don't do chainsaws either for much the same reason. Should a school have a couple of copies of MSOFFICE or a decent clone around? Absolutely. Should every student and staff member have a copy? That's nuts -- but in more school districts than not, they probably do.

A third issue is the unending reports demanded by the educational bureacracy. Attendance information. Number of reduced price lunches served -- by day. Number of playground swine and wild animal attacks broken down by grade. You name it, there's a report. Most of these come in the form of computer programs that attempt to make life easier for the reporter. Their distinguishing characteristics -- be they Excel Spreadsheets, Access, Web forms or whatever -- are that they all demand the latest technologies, they never (I repeat, never) actually work right without tweaking, and their support people are often quite clueless. For whatever reason, school IT people (who are pretty smart, but are often terrible at strategic decisionmaking) are unwilling to tackle this mess although it could probably be resolved without all that much difficulty. Until it is, schools need at least a few up to date Microsoft systems to accomodate the lunatics who think -- against all evidence to the contrary -- that Access or Excel -- are satisfactory tools for data collection.

Don't usually complain but...

[kisielk]

Alright, I've been a Slashdot reader for many years now, and I've yet to ever complain about a story, even the blatant Slashvertisements. Usually I just ignore them. However, this story is probably the most useless thing I've seen posted here. I mean, honestly, the article has about 0 actual substance to it, all it says is that a review will be conducted. What is there to even discuss, as no facts are presented yet? Alright.. back to my hole...

Re:Don't usually complain but...

[Anonymous Coward]

You claim to be a Slashdot reader, but first you actually read the article, and then you can't think of anything to discuss on the subject of whether Microsoft software is worth the money?

You're no Slashdotter. Get back to Technocrat and leave us to our childish flamewars.

Re:Don't usually complain but...

[honkycat]

I've got to agree with you on this one. The net content of this article was that somebody is going to do a study. Ok, great. It'll be news when the study is done and tells us something interesting. This story isn't even interesting for the debate it will spark on slashdot itself -- it's just begging for a flamewar. Can we mod the story down flamebait? (or off-topic, as we'll surely be modded...)

So many ways to measure value

[svunt]

Can you imagine a graphic design school that didn't own a Mac? As much as it displeases me, schools aren't really in the same position as businesses & individuals when it comes time to evaluate software choices. The reality is that Windows is 'industry standard', as is Office, for the bulk of jobs that students will end up wotrking at. Most students with their own computers also run Windows/Office, and need some interoperability. It's not really as simple as measuring costs, support, productivity. Which sucks.

Re:So many ways to measure value

[RJabelman]

The reality is that Windows is 'industry standard', as is Office, for the bulk of jobs that students will end up wotrking at

This has nothing to do with anything. If you used a computer in school, how similar was it to the one you use for your job today? When I was at school we used Acorn Archimedes....

CS

[FullMetalAlchemist]

I don't know, but the university I went to was excellent when it came to pure computer science; it was a UltraSPARC/Solaris only when I started there in the 90's. Those of us who actually passed all the courses where Amiga or BSD users, who loved the Solaris environment and its technical benefits.

But the fact is, when I entered the consulting biz I had very little use for CS. Everything is done half-assed, if at all, and real science was nowhere to be found.

Now, I just switched job and have gone the Microsoft route, and stangely, the quality of work is much better. Simply because you can still to things "quick and dirty" and manage to produce some quite acceptable results.

Thus, if your goal is science (a PhD or similar) a Solaris/UNIX shop is the way to go, especially today with OpenSolaris. But if you're going to work in tha' biz, Microsoft is where it's at.

I still miss the good old days, but clients wont pay for quality unless its billions in cash at stake or a great possibility that people can die if something goes wrong (which is essentially the same thing to an enterprise).

I still run BSD at home, but I'm glad I can work with MS software as it stands.

Mein Gott

[The Bungi]

What a stunning, in-depth analysis of this ever-delicate issue. I'm back from reading the first two chapters, which seemed to go on and on, yet nonetheless were completely absorbing. Tomorrow I shall read the other nine, with a good cup of joe and some trail mix to keep me in top form. This is certainly one where we'll be calling "RTFA" for days to come!

Certainly my heartfelt gratitude go out to the Slashdot crew - especially ScuttleMonkey, bless his heart - for linking to such an enthralling tome of uncompromising educational policy.

Deceptive advertising

[pubjames]

One thing that annoys me about this subject is the deliberately misleading Microsoft advertisements aimed at parents. The ones that imply, for instance, that Microsoft software helps children become creative musicians, when Microsoft doesn't have any music creation applications.

I find it really outrageous that (in the UK at least) a big chunk of many schools IT budget goes towards Windows and Office, which are completely rubbish peices of software for educating young children. But the administrators don't understand much about computers, and the nice man from Microsoft is always taking them out to lunch, being helpful and giving them "special deals" which just happen to take up most of the IT budget...

Re:Deceptive advertising

[pimpimpim]

The ones that imply, for instance, that Microsoft software helps children become creative musicians, when Microsoft doesn't have any music creation applications.

I beg to differ.

P.S. Some explanation on how that was made can be found here.

Re:Deceptive advertising

[lukas84]

See, the problem is much more complicated than that.

(Disclaimer: This is the situation in switzerland)

Schools can't afford to hire qualified personal. A qualified System Administrator costs something from 6-10k per Month (x13). This is A LOT of money for a school.

Also, professional IT doesn't come cheap, and you usually have several software requirements. It's next to impossible for a "normal" School to get professionally supported (NBD Replacement for 3-5 years, Beige Boxes are NOT ACCEPTABLE) Machines without Windows licenses, so it would be a waste not to use them.

OTOH, microsoft offers significant discount for its software to schools. So it might be a lot cheaper to use a microsoft environment, because microsoft environments don't have compatibility problems which might necessitate the use of vmware, or sometimes even a windows terminal server.

Don't forget that a school usually consists of TWO different infrastructures. A smaller one for all the internal administration stuff, which most of the times REQUIRES windows, because of the ERP or Archival Software used, and a learning network. The latter COULD be setup using linux, but it would require additional infrastructure, which would in turn cost more money.

This is also the reason why most schools don't have a professional it at all. Setting up a windows environment is usually less complicated, but still, qualified windows personal is still rare and expensive.

Re:Deceptive advertising

[rolfwind]

It's especially outrageous for Office, as that is an application that can be completely replaced by OpenOffice.

The usual arguments against OpenOffice don't work in a school. It isn't a business and doesn't have to work 100% with MS Office, because schools are usually self-contained. Documents are internal and they don't have a ton of "clients" and what not where they would have to import documents in or out all day.

And if you start using OO, you might as well use Linux/BSD/Other free OS.

There may be a few objections:

1. Educational software isn't written for linux. Too true, but most educational software I have seen is crap anyway, seemingly bought just to have it rather than providing any tangible benefit to the students. Usually the areas are covered by good web applications anyway in the meantime so there are alternatives.

2. Teacher tools. True, I have seen some teacher tools in Windows but they have web application equivalents as well. The thing that can go wrong here is if the web apps use Windows, but as in many things, there are choices.

Re:Deceptive advertising

[A Dafa Disciple]

Man, that flash video tickles me pink. It reminds me of the time when my family's computer (a Packard Bell 386) had a "talking calculator" application. I found the .WAV files for the numbers it spoke and then I used Sound Recorder to cut off the consonant and vowel sounds and saved them to their own separate .WAV files. I then used those to make my own words. Being the juvenile I was, probably around age 10 or 12 at the time, you bet that the first words I made were, of course, curse words.

You can imagine how overjoyed my father was to turn on the computer and also hear that, rather than the computer greeting him with the usual Windows chime, it was cursing at him.

As an LEA Schools IT support guy...

[tygerstripes]

(or LA, as LEAs have been rebranded)

It's true that maintained (ie non-private) schools do have huge autonomy in how they spend their budget and manage their IT, as long as they support the National Curriculum effectively.
However, most Primary schools are not large enough to employ anyone with any decent knowledge of IT, and overwhelmingly they surrender part of their budget to the Schools IT Service run by their Local Authority in order to sort these things out. More importantly, they don't have the time or expertise to even look into these things! Even Secondary (High) schools depend on the local IT Support service to some degree - for hardware and network support, if nothing else.

So, it's down to the LA - the Local Authority, your friendly county/district/borough/city council or Unitary Authority - to drive innovation and intelligent software choice in schools. And what do they do?

Well, yes, they're predominantly in bed with big corporations who have established enterprise sales, support and service structures in place to get the big council contracts. Now, generally the Schools IT Support teams are somewhat independent from the Corporate IT bods, but seldom are they entirely separate and there is usually a noticeable cross-over. My personal dilemma is that, while I support schools, I myself am supported by the Corporate IT team, and depend on them for my office workstation. The result? Thanks to Council IT Policy, I am forced to use MS for OS, Office and every other flavour of software and as a result, am only able to significantly support schools in the same software .

Oh, believe me, I would dearly love to get them using OpenOffice.org (which, irritatingly, Capita Education Services - the biggest UK supplier of Schools Management Information Software - do not support), Linux, Firefox, whatever, but because I'm part of this big horrible organisation, my hands are tied and so are the schools'.

The latest initiative from the government is to open up competition between various Council IT services so schools can go over the border and get their IT support & training from Bogcaster Council instead of Tadminster, but in effect this has virtually no impact since - as I mentioned before - most schools don't have the time or inclination to go hunting around. If it's not dropped in their laps, most schools won't actively seek change as it makes life busier and harder in the short-term.

In short: No, this report will not make any difference at all.

Does only learning Windows provide good value?

[GreatDrok]

It would be interesting to weigh the benefits of teaching students to use computers including multiple platforms versus teaching them just to use certain applications (Office) on a single platform. From my experience in education (far too many years in university as a student and staff) I have found that often the students who have a varied experience are also the most comfortable learning new things. Computing is all about new things and if students are scared to try anything it is hard to get them to function, especially in a scientific environment.

I personally think that the whole standardisation on Windows is not about education quality but rather about making life easy for the teachers who often appear to only be a few pages ahead of the students when it comes to using software. Teachers are the limiting factor. Students are likely to adapt easily to all sorts of platforms without much trouble, but teachers (apart from a small number of bright individuals) have really only learned which button to mash so it isn't surprising that the pupils all learn what button to mash and when mashing that button doesn't work they don't know what to do.

Is this the future of computing? I really hope not. So no, standardising on a single software platform is not good as they do not learn how to adapt. Learning is not just about known how to do something, it is about why you did it.

and what that this prove?

[shis-ka-bob]

The PC and Internet revolutions were Geek-driven. The non-Geek office workers were quite happy with secretaries and file clerks. Remember when 'file' meant a pile of papers sitting in folder and 'file search' meant rummaging though cabinets trying to figure out if the file was misplaced or if you simply had the wrong key work (e.g. 'Car Insurance', 'Auto Insurance ' or 'Insurance for the Honda'). The non-Geek office worker was satified with this.

So who cares what the non-Geek users are using? Thats like trying to understand where a herd of horses is going without looking at the lead stallion. Of course most of us are not as physically imposing as a stallion, but the analogy has some validity: If the lead stallion is considering the needs of the herd, he can succeed. If the open source Geeks are looking our for the needs of the non-Geek office worker, they too can succeed and that success is good for all. There are many forms of leadership, Geeks provide the technical leadership of society.