Windows Cheap Enough For $2B Aussie Laptop Deal

An anonymous reader writes "Windows-based netbooks aren't too expensive to be ruled out of the Aussie government's billion dollar promise to give a laptop to every school-aged child, according to several education departments. The admission follows an earlier report that open source machines based on Ubuntu or Mandriva are the only option to deliver up to four million computers to students for under $2 billion. Microsoft itself claimed it will keep costs per unit down by hosting a lot of the educational software in the cloud rather than on the netbook devices."

Comments

Too bad there won't be a useful

[Anonymous Coward]

internet connection for each of those school children.

Re:Too bad there won't be a useful

[tchiseen]

If the students get OLPC's maybe they can use the ad-hoc wifi capabilities and make Australia's best internet :P

Re:Too bad there won't be a useful

[lysergic.acid]

well, since they're netbooks, not desktops, you'd need ubiquitous wireless access in order to match the functionality that would be provided with Ubuntu + OpenOffice. and considering that Australia's one of the few developed countries behind the U.S. in internet infrastructure, that seems very unlikely.

to get the full benefits of the hardware, you pretty much have to go with FOSS or spend a heck of a lot more money.

Re:Too bad there won't be a useful

[unit8765]

No useful internet because of internet filtering in Australia.

Re:Too bad there won't be a useful

[XDirtypunkX]

While Australia's wired access in rural areas is lacking, we have pretty much ubiquitous access to fast mobile (wireless) broadband. In fact, you can get 7.2mbit access pretty much everywhere in the country.

That's soon going to be 21mbit, the first large scale roll-out in the world of that particular mobile technology.

Re:Too bad there won't be a useful

[ZekeSpeak]

While Australia's wired access in rural areas is lacking, we have pretty much ubiquitous access to fast mobile (wireless) broadband. In fact, you can get 7.2mbit access pretty much everywhere in the country.

That's soon going to be 21mbit, the first large scale roll-out in the world of that particular mobile technology.

Really? The best Telstra can do is 3mbps download. If you want to pay $125 a month you can get a 10Gb shaped download plan (shaped to 64kbps if you exceed this). Sounds expensive.

Most of the plans are capped at 1Gb or less (25c a MB if exceeded).

Re:Too bad there won't be a useful

[bsDaemon]

You do realize that the United States is over 2.27x the land area of the EU, right? Australia is also over twice as large as the EU.

The point I'm trying to make is that people complain about the lack of "broadband saturation" in the US, but don't seem to realize that South Korea is 32,622 square miles while the US is over 3.7MILLION square miles.

There is a whole hell of a lot of space to cover, lots of people, etc. The major metro areas have things covered, but its terribly difficult to to get everything covered in a place like the US or Australia where everyone isn't cooped up on top of each other in a small space.

Cut us some slack, dude.

Re:Too bad there won't be a useful

[shutdown -p now]

With respect to the US, this was debunked time and time again.

Yes, US is large. But most of its population is still gathered in very densely populated areas. Regardless, even within those areas, broadband saturation is nowhere near as high as it is in similarly populated areas in Europe, not to mention Korea or Japan.

Furthermore, Canada and a few European countries (such as Finland) also have pretty large swathes of land with little population scattered around villages, yet they somehow manage to get broadband there as well.

Try again.

$500 a "netbook"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be some pretty damn good machines to pay $500 a unit on an order of 4 million units.

Re:$500 a "netbook"?

[Facetious]

No joke. I just picked up three Acer Aspire One netbooks (Linux edition) for $250 apiece at Newegg.

Re:$500 a "netbook"?

[Akzo]

Things outide the US are generally more expensive, not including shipping/customs costs and currency differences.

Re:$500 a "netbook"?

[Sabriel]

Note that the article is about Australia; one Aussie dollar currently equals 66 US cents and after the various middlemen get their markup the value of a computer in AUD is often double its USD value.

(funny how every time the AUD approaches the USD, something happens to the stock market to bring it back down :p)

Re:$500 a "netbook"?

[strider44]

This is in Australian dollars (approx. $330 USD) and includes a maintenance contract.

Re:$500 a "netbook"?

[Chandon Seldon]

Things outide the US are generally more expensive, not including shipping/customs costs and currency differences.

For millions of units of something made in Taiwan, it shouldn't be terribly difficult to get a reasonable price on it in Australia. At that volume, you can rent your own ship. If you're the Australian government, you shouldn't be paying customs. Etc.

Re:$500 a "netbook"?

[Eskarel]

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

Yes, the stuff is made in Taiwan or somewhere else in South East Asia, and yes, that's closer to Australia, than it is to most of the US, but we still pay more for everything.

It's just the way things are. Just about everything is more expensive here.

Re:$500 a "netbook"?

[QuantumG]

Oh dear. You're not familiar with the Australian government are you?

For a start, the majority of the cost on computers is luxury tax. Yes, the tax man in Australia still considers computers to be a "luxury".

Secondly, if the education department was to opt not to pay the luxury tax on these laptops then the revenue department would claim a shortfall. Ever wonder why government employees have to pay income tax? I mean, shit, their salary comes from the government. For a while I thought the defense force had got it right and didn't tax the wages of soldiers and airmen and such. But no, my confusion was from the advertising for the army reserve. Apparently that's just a carrot. I don't understand how they figure it's a carrot, but apparently it is. Oh, and for added hilarity, did you know that you have to pay taxes on unemployment benefits received from the government? Typically you don't.. because benefits are so low that it puts you under the tax free threshold.. but if you're unemployed for 6 months and employed for the remaining 6 months of a financial year, your combined incoming (benefits+salary) is taxed.. and you'll pay sales tax either way, and import taxes and luxury tax. Double, triple, quadruple taxes.. the ATO has no shame.

Re:$500 a "netbook"?

[Anonymous Coward]

For a start, the majority of the cost on computers is luxury tax. Yes, the tax man in Australia still considers computers to be a "luxury".

I'm an accountant and this is wrong. There is no luxury tax on computers. It is certainly not the majority of cost on computers.

Secondly, if the education department was to opt not to pay the luxury tax on these laptops then the revenue department would claim a shortfall.

There is no luxury tax. I'll let you work out if it's a taxable supply for GST purposes. Suggest reading the GST Act.

Oh, and for added hilarity, did you know that you have to pay taxes on unemployment benefits received from the government? Typically you don't.. because benefits are so low that it puts you under the tax free threshold.. but if you're unemployed for 6 months and employed for the remaining 6 months of a financial year, your combined incoming (benefits+salary) is taxed.. and you'll pay sales tax either way, and import taxes and luxury tax.

The tax legislation takes the view that it is income. I don't think that's unreasonable.

Double, triple, quadruple taxes.. the ATO has no shame.

You are putting the blame in the wrong spot. The Australian Tax Office's prime responsibility is for the administration of the tax system. They make some rulings, and the courts decide definitively on edge cases but ultimately the tax legislation has been determined by parliament and is contained in the various tax acts.

The Pusher

[Forrest Kyle]

Drugs are always affordable when the dealer is trying to get you hooked.

Re:The Pusher

[ozmanjusri]

if Windows is a drug , I say it's PCP

Nah, it'd have to be nicotine.

It's heavily marketed, addictive and once you're hooked, you have to keep spending and spending to get more of the same, though there's been no buzz for decades.

Educational applications in the cloud

[Bruce Perens]

Educational applications on a web server are nothing new. It's funny, though, that Windows would need them. I have one of these small-cheap-light laptops that cost $350 and is intended for use with Windows "only for web browsing and email". I put Debian on it. There's only one thing I have found that it can't do: build the Linux kernel quickly. It's kind of slow at that, but it works. OpenOffice is no problem, etc.

But with a cloud, you can tie all of those kids into a network that Microsoft will be able to monetize, propogandize, etc.

Bruce

Re:Educational applications in the cloud

[Rene S. Hollan]

Duh.

Besides, "code you have on the box beats code that might be available".

What's sad here isn't that Mr. Perens comment is, well, common sense, but rather that so many don't see it as so obvious.

Re:Educational applications in the cloud

[TheRaven64]

You miss the point of this statement:

Microsoft itself claimed it will keep costs per unit down by hosting a lot of the educational software in the cloud rather than on the netbook devices."

It will keep the costs for the hardware down by hosting the applications elsewhere. Or, to put it another way, they will host education apps online for free (now) so that the required hardware specs are lower, allowing more of the total to be spent on (Microsoft) software used to access the (.NET, Windows-only) server side software (which may not remain free for long after the initial investment on Windows laptops has been made and you are locked in).

Re:Educational applications in the cloud

[Bruce Perens]

That's what "monetize" meant :-)

I don't think they're reducing the cost of the hardware, though. $350 USD pays for an Acer Aspire One with 1G RAM and 160G disk at retail. And you can probably get a much better price in a bulk purchase. I think they are budgeting AU $500 per unit. That leaves a lot of money for Microsoft even in the initial purchase.

Re:Educational applications in the cloud

[Dragonslicer]

But with a cloud, you can tie all of those kids into a network that Microsoft will be able to monetize, propogandize, etc.

Isn't that a bit "conspiracy theorist"? Why can't the explanation be something normal, like Microsoft making sure that every kid in Australia grows up believing that computer == Windows.

What a surprise

[QuantumG]

"We're thinking of using Linux" == "Hey Microsoft, we want a discount!"

Re:What a surprise

[grege1]

I agree absolutely, and Microsoft will have to cave in because the thought of every school kid in the country using Linux and OpenOffice would give them nightmares. I would like to see the Education departments really use Linux laptops, but they do not have the guts to carry it through.

Re:What a surprise

[Yfrwlf]

If it came down to it, M$ would give it to them for free rather than see Linux being used of course. That's why it's up to intelligent employees to realize what the long term costs are, and what they are doing by "selling" the Windows platform to students, so free for them would still be an excellent deal for Microsoft in numerous ways.

Re:What a surprise

[Yfrwlf]

Certainly, and that's why education is such a huge target for these corporations, they want teachers teaching students to use the most expensive pieces of software in the industry, which IMO should piss the parents and students off to no end. "Mom, you need to buy me Adobe Creative Suite 3, I need it for class, it's only $500." and "I just got hired on, and you aren't using Windows Vista yet? Your company should upgrade, I was trained on Vista." :P

Many average computer users haven't even heard of Linux even though they use it every day whether they know it or not. That is slowly changing, but M$ is sure doing everything they can to slow its spread. Thus, every little bit done to spread knowledge of it and improve it as a platform, helps.

Re:What a surprise

[QuantumG]

The parent was arguing that such companies are acting like drug dealers which is disingenuous...

Why? You have to make an argument. Everyone else can see that they are acting like drug dealers.. giving you your first "hit" for free. So what magical insight do you have that the rest of us are wrong?

My point was, as if anyone cares, that people see a "student edition" of a $500 product for $100 and go "wow, look how cheap that is!" when there are perfectly capable alternatives on the market for much less than even the student price. I actually hear people say with glee "wow, it's great that I can pay $100 now and $400 later when I've learned the product". You fucking what now? You're happy to pay the overpriced cost of the software because they gave you an installment plan? Oh, and BTW, "learning" how to use a piece of software is backasswards.. if you can't figure out how to use the software in the first 15 minutes of sitting in front of it then it is junk and you should raise your standards. But, to be fair, in some circles that's the best software available and the whole stinkin' industry needs to raise their standards at the same time, which will never happen organically.

Plus I felt like ranting.

Not really the same.

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems like apples and oranges... With Ubuntu (for example) they're storing their files locally, with Windows they're going to be stored on Microsoft's servers somewhere, it's not really a comparable solution.

Oops!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see a hosted version of Microsoft Office 2007.

The internet (or LAN) goes down, or there's some major power outage, and no-one can do their work or homework.

Save money

[lordharsha]

Wouldn't it be more efficient to ditch Windows and use the extra money to give laptops to more children?

Re:Save money

[insane_machine]

Two Laptops Per Child Act (TLPC)

Re:Save money

[Yfrwlf]

Even if Windows was given to them for free, which it very well could be, Microsoft would still get a lot from it and the school district, parents, and students would still lose in various ways.

Re:Save money

[Elektroschock]

But negative prices are still possible! Microsoft should offer the netbooks with Windows away for free to schools. Otherwise the schools pay the lock-in costs and do product training and platform marketing for the monopolist for free. It is like paying for a galley seat and workout.

Re:Save money

[Yfrwlf]

Right, it's great advertising, etc etc, like you said, so M$ certainly could offer them money for agreeing to choose them over Linux. Just depends on how far M$ is willing to go and if they think it's worth it to do so.

The Two Billion Dollar Laptop

[atomicthumbs]

Doubt that this project will catch on.

Teachers were probably the reason.

[Zombie Ryushu]

Of course.

I have a feeling that is what the case will be. The teachers who have Windows desktops in their classrooms took one look at Linux and went "No. You give us Windows or the boxes will wind up collecting dust in the back of the classroom." And that was probably was what alot of the Independent Education software vendors said too. "We have thousands of man hours and workers tied up in this Windows only education software. We will not port our software to Linux. Put Windows on your boxes or we will take our business elsewhere."

Re:Teachers were probably the reason.

[QuantumG]

Yeah, because ISVs often dictate the terms for government contracts.

Re:Teachers were probably the reason.

[jbolden]

QuantumG is correct also look at the quantities. 4m. 4m units you get to set terms to software vendors.

Re:Teachers were probably the reason.

[UncleTogie]

What the Departments and consultants would be saying is...

So counter those arguments as thus:

1. The teachers that get sent off for Windows "training" come back nearly as clueless as to usage to make it a laugh at best. Just pick your apps, train a few staff, and have them take it from there. You tell the teachers what to click, and they do so. This is NO different than Windows or OSX. Once those boxes are set up and networked, there is VERY little a teacher needs to do that'd require anything above "user" level.

2. Key phrase here is "teachers pulled from the classroom". If they're already teaching, then they've already been trained on whichever system they're using that year. It isn't like they're going to be installing RAID arrays and other hardware. That's usually saved for the hardware vendor. Once again, this is showing someone how to show someone what to click. No worries.

Here it doesn't matter if Windows or Ubuntu get picked as they both serve the purpose well.

Sure, were it not for the MS plan to host this in "the cloud"... {Oooo, do I hate that 2-word phrase. It's a network, ya doofs. Fraggin' buzzword bingo. {/soapbox}}

Internet access isn't cheap in Australia. Unless they're considering local hosting, MS's apps will eat bandwidth for no reason other than to run a word processor. Multiply that by just a few hundred students, and it starts looking ugly for whomever's paying the ISP. Multiply this by the number of students in Australia, and it's downright nasty.

I could care less which OS they use, as long as they're using SOME sense about it.

What a great alternative

[meist3r]

Owning a netbook that merely runs a basic version of an operating sytem that the company itself wants to get rid off and as the only reason to chose over a full-scale FOSS option I get an MS version of Google Apps? No thanks, take the Linux computers and spend whatever you're saving on some Tux-savvy teachers.

Cloud == Cheaper??

[Lord Byron II]

I don't think so. It's just a nice way to guarantee that the government will have to buy and maintain some MS servers.

Considering overhead...

[Methlin]

The cheapest EEE should be around $380AUD which should leave plenty for bureaucratic overhead, graft, and kickbacks. However that's the Linux version, the ones that can actually run XP would be around $530AUD which is over budget.

Computer != Education

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, it's a tool, but wouldn't that $2 billion be better spent on smaller class sizes, better teachers, etc.?

Re:Computer != Education

[TheRaven64]

This is $500 per student. I'm assuming those are Australian dollars, so around $330 US dollars. That buys you somewhere between a quarter and a half of a teacher, for one year, per class of 30. Looking at some real numbers, the starting salary for a teacher in Australia is $41,109, or the same cost as 82 laptops. I couldn't find any data on the average class size in Australia, but buying 1/82 of a teacher per child doesn't sound like it would make much difference, especially since it would only last for one year.

Re:Computer != Education

[Antony-Kyre]

Yeah, I guess you're right.

But are there any studies showing that students having laptops improve their learning to justify such an expense?

Do the students keep the laptops post-graduation?

And, could some overcrowded schools benefit from more teachers to reduce class size? Not all schools, but some.

And, where precisely is this money coming from? The taxpayers, right? Is Australia in a recession like America? Maybe it's time to conserve rather than spend.

Re:Computer != Education

[XDirtypunkX]

Australia is very much a Keynesian oriented economy. Australia is also not currently in recession and has a budget surplus. We may not have a surplus when it's over and we may get dragged into recession by the rest of you, but for now the government can spend to keep the economy from going into recession. In fact, it's the Keynesian way :-).

Because big government contracts coming from the budget surplus (or even a small temporary deficit) give the economy a much needed kick.

Summary incorrect

[kaos07]

to give a laptop to every school-aged child

No, the policy is to give upper high school children in years 9-12 a laptop not "every school-aged child".

Pay now or pay later... you still pay the MS piper

[Reapl]

OK, so Micro$haft have come up with a cost model that in the short term "may" allow the laptops to be purchased for the same money, but ffs can't people look long term with this stuff and not just the initial up front cost.

So you aren't paying the MS tax for office now, but instead you are just amoritising that cost over years of needing larger internet bandwidth to the "cloud". With some of the crap being bandied about down here lets go out on the edge and look at issues with this...
    - The new $8Billion national broadband network of which one core issue is to provide school networks if it doesn't come off then stuffed internet for schools means no cloud that will be useful
    - The great aussie internet fence (like the rabbit proof fence not the great wall)... if you are using the cloud lets hope no cloud server accidently gets put on the black list...
    - I have not seen anything from MS that show the ongoing cost analysis of this
    - how much to upgrade the version of office in the 'cloud'?
    - how and at what cost to get non-MS products into this mysterios 'cloud'?
    - when are MS going to force me to upgrade ALL my netbooks because the latest cloud products don't work on the old core netbook OS? (and it will be forced look at their track record)

Basically, I don't like ther risks or the costings of this cloud computing model for schools like this...

Re:Pay now or pay later... you still pay the MS pi

[Yfrwlf]

It's simple, Linux = free. Windows = cost. They want money, they're a business, that's why they push their product. Even if they sold it to them for free, M$ would still benefit from them using it.

So, I don't need to see a cost analysis, and I definitely don't need to see one from M$ to try to justify their existence to me. Money should go into FOSS through paid development, bounties, and support. That should be what all institutions are geared towards, but instead they are stuck in the past.

"Here's a government contract to make the FOSS equivalent of Reader Rabbit for students for our schools. We are now taking bids."

That's the kind of stuff everyone should be seeing from their governments. The amount of money that every single school district spends on individual purchases for close source software, oftentimes it being the same software over and over and over again for all the licenses, would be enough money to pay developers to program every single piece of open source software schools would ever need all over the entire world a hundred times over, and what's more it would be a long-term investment instead of a flash in the pan. When governments wake up to this, the world will be a better place, but they won't wake up until citizens start waking them.

P.S., of course you can apply it to all other branches of governments, to businesses, and everyone else. The amount of money thrown away for temporary software orgasms is astronomical. More cooperation is needed for the new age of software development.

Get off your high horse, kid

[westlake]

Drugs are always affordable when the dealer is trying to get you hooked.

You only have to mouse over to Walmart.com to see Windows becoming very competitive with Linux in the netbook sector.

It's a familiar story.

The OEM Linux box enters the retail market with bottom-feeder specs.

It is never upgraded - even as the entry-level Windows PC approaches the same price point with hardware that was mid-line or better six months or so back.

I am Australian...

[spandex_panda]

and I for one would make a phone call if I knew who to. I would recommend using Linux and in particular striking a deal for support from Ubuntu or Redhat to get a custom OS running on 10" eees or U100 Winds. This way you would pay ~$500 AUD for each and the OS would be top notch. An issue with the Linux on these little laptops is that it seems rushed together. Using a full fledged Linux distro with package management would empower kids like nothing else! What with 2 million kids banging away at python and the few of them who contribute patches contributing patches to Ubuntu it would be a very great thing! Next they support their parents and grandparents building and maintaining their Ubuntu Pcs ... I recommend Microsoft should pay to get Windows on these things!

Bad idea, Microsoft or not

[pembo13]

Having all of your apps in a remote "cloud" cannot possibly be a good idea, at least for a school. How much are they going to have to beef up their network just for that alone?

Re:Get off your high horse, kid

[Ant P.]

It is never upgraded

Well when you're used to an OS that needs reformatting every six months to get it back to a usable speed, I can see why that might be an issue.

Anyone else skeptical at the "cloud computing" bit

[sarkeizen]

But he revealed for the first time that cloud-based applications may be used alongside traditionally licensed software to make Microsoft-based tender proposals more attractive and cost-effective.

âoeNot everything has to run [locally] on the device,â said Watson.

âoeWeâ(TM)ll have software that runs on the device but also leverage Live Services and other applications that run in the cloud.â

If it's a common educational application that could be run locally on the machine anyway. How is it cheaper to run it in the cloud? Remember the context here seems to be about the purchase price of the laptop. It's conceivable that MS is reducing support load but I doubt by very much.

The cloud hosted application is going to have an ongoing cost that the local application isn't.

To me this sounds like MS using a different delivery mechanism to justify a discount that would probably anger their other channel partners.

But really it seems much cheaper to simply send an OS image to the laptop maker.