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British Govt Debates Swapping Printers For iPads
An anonymous reader writes "The British government is examining whether it could save money by getting rid of its printers and giving civil servants free iPads instead. The head of the UK government skunkworks told silicon.com that if he got rid of all of a major government department's printers and gave staff iPads, the savings on printing costs would pay for the tablets in less than 18 months. The UK parliament has already let tablets into the debating chamber, with politicians already starting to choose to use tablets rather than bundles of papers in debates."
Ex news of the world journalists ..... prime your friendly hacker, you could be getting the story of the century.
what's stopping them from changing already?
"with politicians already starting to choose to use tablets rather than bundles of papers in debates."
Research shows that when "debating" a political opponent, hitting them up side the head with an iPad is 55% more effective than hitting them up side the head with a bundle of paper.
As I see it, there are two serious problems with this effort. First, sooner or later someone is going to want a hard copy of a document, if only because a software copy can be altered and is impermanent. Second, once you get away from paper, you lose one of the current fundamental obstacles to increasing the extent and power of bureaucracy, namely, that someone has to keep track of all the paperwork and some place has to be found to store it.
I dread to think of the makework that they'll have all those freed government employees doing in order to keep government rolls at current levels of employment and how much extra work it'll mean for anyone having to interact with that bureaucracy.
Not that I'm suggesting my very poor government tries to build it's own device but surely a tablet sized kindle would be better? Some of those documents must be pretty bug, surely e-ink is the way forward in that regard?
Am I just being naive?
And it just HAS to be an iPad. No cheaper, faster, better tablet will do. I am loving all these justifications we're seeing from different people as to why the iPad is the golden ticket they have been waiting for. Problem is no one is going to steal hard copy. People are going to steal iPads. No one will take hard copy home with them unless they absolutely have to (eugh who wants to do government work at home? I work from 9 to 5 only!). People will take iPads home with them, and they will be used by the wife and kids and family friends. Hard copy stays at the office, probably in a file somewhere. iPads will be traveling and vulnerable to being accessed by anyone - they seem to have a tendency to get left at bars.
And the government suddenly realized that it could do all this with $800 iPads but absolutely could NOT do it with $500 laptops. Just, wow. Tell me why we need government again?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You need both, online access _and_ paper copies. As soon as you want to mark and highlight, paper beats all other options by a large margin. iPads should be regarded as low-reliability, high-maintenance, read-only and possible insecure alternative for document access.
This is the stupid idea of somebody that did not even try to understand the issue. The paperless office is a myth.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
if he got rid of all of a major government department's printers.
That's the only way to get to the "paperless office" ... remove the ability to use paper.
Keep any around, and it won't work. Lots of people with kick and scream and need to be drug into this. There are lots of things tablets and the like suck at that paper is good at. To move forward we have to find alternatives to those things that do work well in a paperless environment, but there are lots of people (I used to be one of them) who will decry that "your tablet sucks at " and use it as a reason to use paper.
The British government is examining whether it could save money by getting rid of its printers and giving civil servants free iPads instead.
You keep using that word, I don't think you understand what it means. The sentence would have worked fine without it.
I fail to see where a government issued iPad is free. The article didn't use that word.
Maybe they should decide on the form factor before deciding on the manufacturer. It's like saying, "Hey, our staff could use some Toyota Yaris! It would cut down the time they spend using the bus!"
You'll need to give them at least two tables, so that they can put at least two documents side by side.
The first guy to chuck his iPad at the opposition when he would usually have been waving his papers, going "RARRaarararrrrarararararar", will demonstrate the idiocy of the idea.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Awesome :-) I look forward to a steady stream of cheap iPads appearing on eBay, ideally loaded with sensitive documents ...
Winston would welcome this as his job would be much easier.. He can simply update the original document, and when the users look again, boom, the new history would be already updated. This will surely help Big Brother eliminate Emmanuel Goldstein one final time.
Which one?
Samsung - Same price
Blackberry Playbook - Same price and it doesn't do email
LG - More expensive
Some crappy Chinese thing with a resistive screen
I find it doubtful that the cost of printers is £400 (the price of a basic 16GB WiFi model) over 18 months per member of staff.
Also, handing out tablets poses a massive information security risk, They're already quite picky about who they give a laptop to, and for good reason!
Then again, the article does seem to be talking about DCLG. That's a comparatively small department; most people would consider a "major government department" to be something like DWP, HMRC or the Home Office. DCLG only has a few offices. Compare that to DWP where you've got hundreds of offices with a hundred thousand employees and it's easy to see how handing out iPads is less of a challenge for them.
This seems more like that prick Pickles trying to grab another headline.
Nick
Think of the jobs.
First you have the people that make the paper. Then you have the people that sell and fix the printers, then you have the people that make and sell the ink, then you have the people that do the print runs, then you have the people that deliver the printout, then you have the people that collect the print outs, and then you have the paper recycling.
It will never fly. They will just add iPads as an option and still do all the printing.
If you don't believe me let me just put this in as proof.
Nimrod AEW, Nimrod MRA4, and A400m
Sir Humphrey: You see minister if we provide iPads and the printed records we shall have all the advantages of portability and the accountability of a paper audit.
PM: Do we want accountability?
Sir Humphrey: We like to say so.
PM: So we get all the advantages of increased efficiency with no job loss?
Sir Humphrey: Precisely Minister and paper is cheap just a few pennies a sheet and you can not put a price on accountability.
PM: Well that sound prefect.
Sir Humphrey: Yes Prime Minister.
Bernard: Sir Humphrey we spend three hundred million Euros a year on printing, supplies, paper, and personal. That does to be lot more than mere pennies.
Sir Humphrey: I never said how many pennies where in a mere.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Get rid of all paper and save the cost in 18 months. That sounds great.
Unless you do real world calculations and realize that you won't be able to get rid of all paper. Say you manage to get rid of 70% of the paper, and perhaps 50% of the printers. So now it will take perhaps 30 months to save the costs.
Then we have to take in to account the fact that people will lose, destroy or otherwise need to replace the iPads. So then we are up to lets say 40 months. And you need new IT staff to help with all the problems. So lets say 48 months.
Now after 3 years you realize that you need the new nifty features of iPad 6, but you still have 12 months left before saving any money.
Now a better idea would be to actually do some work and go through which people would save the most on switching from paper to ipad and give those the ipads instead. I bet you can find a few that could save the cost of the ipad within 6 months.
That way you will save the cost of all those people who will just put the ipad in a drawer and continue printing as usual.
Because they're cooler?
Wouldn't a Kindle do the same job, cost less, and have better battery life?
The British government is examining whether it could save money by getting rid of its printers and giving civil servants free iPads instead
And yet you didn't say they where "given" "free" printers, or "given" "free" paper, or "given" "free" ink/toner. Or chairs, or desks, or heating.
Now sure you can argue that choosing the iPad might be just picking the most trendy option rather than the best (in terms of costs and benefits). But instead you decided to inject the word "free" to try and bias the reader from the start. I assume you are paying the share of the building rent that your desk space/office space/whatever uses and your portion of the electricity bill too, rather then being "given" it for "free".
Seems an actual worthwhile use of tablets to me. It's almost all viewing, with almost no editing. The form factor is similar to paper so the existing setup won't need changing. It also makes for much better practical jokes by updating people's documents on the fly.
The paperless office is as likely to happen as the paperless bathroom.
The three seashells won't help when you have to blow your nose, either.
With HP having dropped its tablet hardware, it wouldn't be in the running should the government adopt tablets., which would also mean, assuming HP printers are in use, HP would no longer be a printer or ink supplier.
If Apple actually sold free iPads, that would be the big news and few people would give the British government's decision a second glance. As it turns out, though, "free iPads" don't exist (except as a spam filter rule), and if the government isn't getting directly billed for them, it's pretty much a sure thing that something nefarious is happening and they're costing people even more than retail price.
Please, think before you summarize. I RTFAed and there was not a word about free iPads.
A task as simple as getting a signature or writing notes on a document and giving it to a colleague becomes a complicated endeavor. Then you have to coordinate with other paper offices somehow to make your business operations smooth.
Someone has to support all these complicated tasks and it will costs a lot more money than the initial $400 purchase.
Btw, I think it's a good idea. When I worked for the government I would have loved to have gotten rid of the bookcase of legislation, precedence, meeting minutes, errata, training documents, etc... that took up not only most of my workspace but for every single person working there as well. Having to pay for less office space and always having the latest legislation as well as operating procedures on hand would easily pay for itself regardless of the printers. As long as it's easily searchable and annotable it'd be fine.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Electromagnetic pulse
I do not think its a great idea for any government to buy into any closed system when alternatives exist. Yes the Android tablets are in their infancy but they can get better, especially when a need gives them purpose.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Of course iPads are The Thing to get and I'm sure MPs or civil servants want to be seen dead with a functionally equivalent, cheaper, more open tablet running a rival OS.
18 months? What is an iPad's average life span? I would think the *average* wouldn't be much more than 2 years.
Our printers usually last 4+. Also to note, there are a lot less printers to have fixed, then iPads in that case.
You can also write on things you print. Not exactly the case with iPad documents.
I find this an extremely flawed argument.
But it depends on how the guy is calculating costs. Is he saying that if zero paper printouts were created, the investment would pay off in less than 18 months? If so, then he is not doing this correctly. If he is saying that it will reduce paper printouts by something like 50% (and he'd need a solid basis for the figure), then perhaps this is a good idea. A lot of people here on Slashdot are annoyed that they are looking at iPads - and I agree - what a waste of money, etc. On the other hand, the article isn't clear if that is their only consideration - must it be an iPad? It seems like they actually mean to be saying "tablet computer" (from the article) - but iPad now means "tablet computer" for a lot of people, unfortunately. Anyway, as long as they are calculating their return realistically, I think this would be pretty great.
It's easier for MinTruth to keep things up to date when there's no hardcopy anywhere...
If this idea takes hold, can we please see a decent touch-screen e-ink reader out there too? Something akin to the iPad's functionality, but with an e-ink screen...
Do you sign it? Does the diffs get signed and added to the end?
This is just someones excuse to get free gadgets. How will the politicians send letters to their constituents without a printer ? oh wait thy will still have a printer to run and maintain and as soon as they realise that reading on an iPad screen is uncomfortable they will start printing their documents again and the iPad will just get used to play Angry Birds on the tax payers dime.
Sure, it's fine to refactor paper into bits and tout the benefits in terms of reduced capital expenditures, improved environmental impact etc., but without an electronic document management infrastructure that is widely adopted and intuitive for users it's not going to fly. Carrying my entire filecabinet with me sure beats having to pop back to my desk and rummage around for that all important bit of information, but what happens when I want to share it with you - how do I do that without breeding persistent duplicates (" just email me a copy") or forked versions ("email me your notes") all without having to be tech savvy? Perhaps this is a wonderful opportunity for an open source project like Alfresco or Knowledge Tree to step up to the plate and create an 'electronic print job' management engine. Some sort of central repository that uncouples the records management aspects from the traditional paper process metaphors, all delivered through an os-agnostic interface... True 'cloud printing', if you will.
I call Shenanigans on they iPad's being paid off within 18 months of printer costs. You can easily get a printer to service 50-100 folks. You're telling me that in a year and a half they spend over $25,000 on printer supplies for that one printer? BS...
Here in the US I'd want to load the iPad with as many distractions as possible. Install ALL the Angry Birds!
First kindergartens, now government.
I can see it:
-Johnson.
-Yes sir.
-I need that top-secret report on my desk now, Johnson.
-Yes sir, right away sir.
Brings an iPad.
-Johnson. Reduct these, these and these words out of it and send it to the newspapers.
-Yes sir.
Later in Rupert Murdoch controlled News of the World latest reincarnation:
-I just received this in the mail. It's an entire iPad. I don't know why they have white out all over the screen, but let me wash that right off.
You can't handle the truth.
Any tablet approved for public servant use should only use open standards for data and meet a government security standard similar to those done by NIST, with two factor authentication.
No to the iOS walled garden - no to a manufacturer who will issue devices which will tell Exchange it's an encrypted device when it isn't.
This is how it begins, people.
Telescreens!
With software written in newspeak!
!!!
Seriously.......How much environmental impact does the entire manufacturing process of building tablets create? At least the paper industry is good at replacing the trees it uses.
Despite the summary being ipad only, the actual IT guy looking into this in the article is very clear that it's tablets in general.
OH NOES! Now that CmdrTaco has left the editors don't know that there are more tablets than just iPads! This place has really gone to shit.
Or Nooks, or some other e-reader.
Do you really want to give them the distractions of Angry Birds and a zillion other apps? Do you really need color, for that matter? If iPads would pay for themselves in 18 months, Kindles (or equivalent) would pay for themselves in what, about 4 months?
But I guess sexy or shiny beats functional almost every time.
-- Alastair
if they somehow manage to save anything at all it certainly won't be money.
The fact that Britain is debating getting its public servants iPads is just a symptom. If there are British government employees that can't even afford an iPad, Britain has bigger problems than its printer budget!!
the civil servant has lost his hands in an accident and has hooks for hands? or they need to give a document to some one without an iPad or even computer access - they have to print it out. and i do like the above mentioned laptop - i got a 17" dual core with a blu-ray player for $630 running W7. You know, this does sound like where a netbook would do nicely - however get rid of the Atom processor and put at least a Celeron in it - they have wi-fi and you can always hook it up to other peripherals easily - like a big monitor.
We have a pilot deployment of about a dozen iPads in my office (in addition to the user's traditional desktop/laptop) - I pulled up the printing history for those dozen users and aside from a small spike upwards just after they received their iPads (printing iPad manuals/guides?), printing use has remained flat, and costs around $10/month per user (including paper, ink + maintenance, but not including the printer lease, the lease fee might add $5 to the cost, but I can't imagine we'd get rid of the copier/scanner/printer even if people dramatically reduced their printing use). Even if they stop all printing, we'll never recoup the cost of the iPad.
And so far, the iPads get the most use as a netbook - most of the users have bought a keyboard and standup case that makes it look like netbook - I rarely seen one in use without a keyboard except when playing Angry Birds.
That none of the MPs like to pound the table with their papers, er, iPads!
Invenio via vel creo
This is more about getting politicians getting free ipad's paid for by the government then actually having any use in the government. After all it is the shiny new toy that they have to have, they just want us to pay for it like everything else.
oh this will go well. Anyone remember Labour's free laptops to poor kids? That was the scheme where they gave crappy ass £300 laptops to poor children at an expense of about £800 each to the government.
"Dre don't get as high as me.... I'm Cheech and Chong" - Snoop Dogg
This will keep them safe from using "chintzy paper clips" on important legislation.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I think the US Congress should be dragged kicking and screaming in the 21st century.
I'm sooo tired of old, busted paper running out of battery life, or the shattered mess it makes when dropped on the floor.
Just take 5 pounds Sterling out of every person's paycheck for every new document the generate. This will stop both the need for iPads and the need for paper.
iPads and other tablets are not exactly electronic paper. While I agree that they save tons of paper, you can't exactly doodle sketch on them (although with some you might be able to jot notes with a little stylus so I might be wrong there). I do agree that getting rid of at least some paper would not be a bad thing. If you want a permanent record, then fine, print it. If its just a bill or proposed legislation, then keep it electronic. They are a million times easier to change when electronic, and there are lots of bills that die on the docket before debate or votes when governments fall (prior to election). Its also easier to carry all the laws in a country, and be able to cross reference them all almost instantly with a tablet. You can't do that with paper. It would also be a good time to establish 802.11s (mesh networking) and put it on tablets. You could set up privacy channels (like FRS radios), combined with long-string encryption. 17 years ago I worked in a telephone data center. Besides becoming very familiar with IBM's MVS/XA operating system (and JES3 and CICS and JCL), I also became familiar with IBM 3800 and particularly 3900 printers. They laser print 229 pages per minute, or a 35 pound 2200 sheet box of paper in about 9 minutes. A 1000 pound roll of paper takes a little longer. There are tractor holes on the paper, but its not perforated (it would tear before it got in), so there are rotary cutters to remove the tractor holes, and folders to fold the paper. I'm describing this because we started talking about ipads and getting rid of paper. The 1/2 inch (12mm) trim from each side of the paper becomes a bale beneath the rotary cutters, and must be removed after about 10000 sheets. With three or four printers running over 8 hours (more or less continually) this amounts to several tons of waste trim every night. Its like a landfill starter kit. Ipads hold about as much, but in a smaller, easier-to-carry form, and don't become landfill later on.
The "Eerste Kamer" (senate) in the Netherlands already is transitioning to paperless, using iPads. They say it'll be cost-covering in one year.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Mine does email just fine, tethered to my corporate BB Bold via BlackBerry Bridge. And at long last there's a Citrix client for it, too.
--
.nosig
Paper weight and clip manufacturers are outraged.
who will buy their expensive ink now? :-)
Ugh IPAD IPAD IPAD. As if it were the only tablet. Man they're fine and everything but come on people. 90% of the people I see using Ipads at school/work are just trolling the net or playing games. I can't wait till all my elected officals get a "free" IPAD from my tax dollars so they can level up in angry birds. I'm tired of that bullshit productivity argument btw. Geeze, Fine you want IPADS go for it.... but there better be some damn accountability on what they get used for.
why would someone in the uk use this dated american euphemism?
The DX is not really being pushed by Amazon here in the UK, although you can get one for about £300 - getting into half-decent tablet territory. The regular kindle is £110-£150 which is just cheap enough to justify buying it as a single-purpose device for reading novels & similar.
Also, in the UK/EU we have this utterly stupid tax regime that really hobbles e-readers: printed books are exempt from sales tax, but e-books are subject to (typically 20%) tax. I get the impression that (printed) text books here are rather cheaper than in the US - but not by the time you've added 20%.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.