I was just commenting on what procurement does. Having read several articles it appears management changed and the priorities changed. This was change of strategy more than anyone not understanding the strategy.
Anyone buying a zillion ipads for school children without realizing that they'll be using them mostly to screw around on the internet within about five minutes is certainly an idiot;
That's not true. I can put a pretty tight monitoring application on an iPad that doesn't allow it to use any TCP/IP except via. the VPN which only whitelists certain parts of the internet. I'd rather use it on a Samsung where I can kill the device entirely if they try and hack the firmware, but it is still doable for the most part on an Apple. A kid can probably reload firmware and install his own generic OS but I'll know which device fell off pretty quickly, the kid will get caught.
As for Pearson, your description sounds fair. It is hard to bid on government contracts but I've certainly seen them have some very unrealistic implementation strategies.
In 2013 the superintendent was of the "deploy as quickly as possible" and just keep fixing till it works. Sort of an agile mentality of minimal viable product and build. He considered speed essential and was cool with the fact other infrastructure wouldn't be in place in time, this was his top priority. When he left the iPad project had the same schedule but not the institutional juice of being the first priority.
FWIW my daughter (central NJ) is in a district. Low boycott rate though parents got worked up about it. Essentially the curriculum being tested doesn't match the curriculum currently being taught. So the test is going to accurately show before and after but for individual students is kind of worthless.
1) Teachers distribute materials via. a Google share system tied to a school based Google docs account 2) Kids submit homework via. this system 3) Some classes the materials are useful in class, when it is they kids can use their own tablets or one of the school's Chromebooks. 3') There are iPads when interface is best used in a casual touch, shared way in place of the Chromebooks.
Works well. Gets used just like it is used in life.
There are 2 tablet markets in meaningful numbers. 1) A high end market with iPads acting as a variant on computers. 2) A low end market with Android tablets acting as a variant on televisions + DVRs.
Type (2) doesn't exist meaningfully in the USA, i.e. tablets in the USA are iPads. You want to train students on today's technology, which the original LAUSD superintendent did then iPads are much more desirable. You are absolutely correct the alternatives may be better in all those other ways.
Summary didn't mention this but Pearson is a huge global education player. Just a few of their brands: Addison–Wesley, BBC Active, Bug Club, eCollege, Fronter, Longman, MyEnglishLab, Penguin Readers, Prentice Hall, Poptropica and Financial Times Press. So I don't see how LA Unified is going to avoid them.
As for this not meeting their needs... Reading the article LA Unified seems completely clueless. The contract was $768 / iPAD (I assume this includes warranty) + $200 / content & software license for 3 years. They according to the article are demanding that Apple fix the application, Apple didn't create the application nor does it own the content. They bought 43,261 iPads with the Pearson curriculum and 77,175 without. AFAICT Apple delivered their part. Their problem is the Pearson curriculum.
I can get that they don't like the app, but at this cost they can just write an app. The whole thing sounds like they don't know how to buy or deploy technology when it comes to a custom solution. Which is potentially understandable for a small district but inexcusable for a $1.3b contract.
Well the Druze in Israel aren't under threat of death and they don't spread their faith. The Alawites are right now doing a pretty good defending not only defending their territory from the Sunni (al-Nusra and ISIS) but holding some of theirs. So at least it isn't clear they would.
Now I would agree those secret religions evolved in an environment where spread the faith was a good way to die. But the exception is getting harder to make.
Yes I was considering shunning to be harassment. Amish treat X-Amish much worse than they treat non-Amish and X-Amish can't be treated like non-Amish. They also gossip and pass this along so that everyone knows to treat this person badly. I'm not sure what distinction you are trying to make.
I'd say on average the Amish shunning is far worse. Obviously the very worst cases of Scientology are worse than the least bad cases among the Amish.
iOS is only sold by a single manufacturer and there are competing manufacturers. As long as high end Android exists there is no monopoly.
As for the rest... I don't know what you mean by Apps competing with Apple removed. There are music apps competing with Garage Band. There are presentation apps competing with Keynote. There are word processing apps competing with Pages.... I'd say Apple demonstratively does allow competing applications.
As for inability to install 3rd party firmware... Apple allows you to install 3rd party firmware it just completely voids the warranty and makes you unable to use the rest of the services.
Android is a phone operating system with limited functionality that can support multiple layers on top providing a full application API including Google Play. Android is open source.
Google Play is a product designed to run on Android. It is included with some phones and not with others. Google play is not open source.
No it wouldn't. Nokia had tremendous restructuring costs. Microsoft was providing large subsidies in exchange for the exclusive use of WindowsPhone OS. Without those subsidies Nokia's restructuring costs and higher costs of manufacturing means it can't be cost competitive with the Asian manufacturers and goes bankrupt. There is no Nokia if they follow your advice. Instead Elop gets them through the restructuring and then gets the company sold for $7b.
Are you sure they don't control "an app distribution channel" for Android? You can load other app distribution systems in. Not saying that Google isn't potentially a monopoly at this point, but it is hard to see where they have engaged in restraint given that you can layer anything on top of Android in place of play. Heck Microsoft is looking at.NET for Android.
Was that your intent, or were you just listing churches that do perform church discipline (which usually is not harassment--at least I'd hope!).
I was listing church discipline as applied to membership and not just ministers / pastors.
I can assure anyone wondering, the LDS church does NOT harass people who are not members.
Of course not. The LDS church, along with most churches are quite nice to non-members. The question is the attitude towards X-members, apostate LDS. There can be (though it has dropped off in the last few decades) harassment, shunning... of x-members.
You might be a bit confused (at least in the USA) between non-profit (i.e. a 501 organization) and not making a profit. Lots of non-profits turn profits in particular years, they just have tremendous restrictions on what they can do with the money. In exchange they don't pay taxes.
As for Islam they mostly don't abuse the non-profit status by excessive spending. New Agers seem to be the worst on that front.
A Dallas Cowboy Fanclub would likely be a non-profit. There are advantages and disadvantages in being a religion. What advantage would it be seeking in becoming a religion that they wouldn't have as a non-profit?
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I was just commenting on what procurement does. Having read several articles it appears management changed and the priorities changed. This was change of strategy more than anyone not understanding the strategy.
That's not true. I can put a pretty tight monitoring application on an iPad that doesn't allow it to use any TCP/IP except via. the VPN which only whitelists certain parts of the internet. I'd rather use it on a Samsung where I can kill the device entirely if they try and hack the firmware, but it is still doable for the most part on an Apple. A kid can probably reload firmware and install his own generic OS but I'll know which device fell off pretty quickly, the kid will get caught.
As for Pearson, your description sounds fair. It is hard to bid on government contracts but I've certainly seen them have some very unrealistic implementation strategies.
In 2013 the superintendent was of the "deploy as quickly as possible" and just keep fixing till it works. Sort of an agile mentality of minimal viable product and build. He considered speed essential and was cool with the fact other infrastructure wouldn't be in place in time, this was his top priority. When he left the iPad project had the same schedule but not the institutional juice of being the first priority.
For this number of devices they could have paid for a deployment, training and device management service. Though obviously that sort of thing costs.
FWIW my daughter (central NJ) is in a district. Low boycott rate though parents got worked up about it. Essentially the curriculum being tested doesn't match the curriculum currently being taught. So the test is going to accurately show before and after but for individual students is kind of worthless.
My daughter's school uses tablets. Very simple..
1) Teachers distribute materials via. a Google share system tied to a school based Google docs account
2) Kids submit homework via. this system
3) Some classes the materials are useful in class, when it is they kids can use their own tablets or one of the school's Chromebooks.
3') There are iPads when interface is best used in a casual touch, shared way in place of the Chromebooks.
Works well. Gets used just like it is used in life.
Procurement in many organizations is supposed to verify that management understands what they are buying. Not sure if that's true in LAUSD or not.
There are 2 tablet markets in meaningful numbers.
1) A high end market with iPads acting as a variant on computers.
2) A low end market with Android tablets acting as a variant on televisions + DVRs.
Type (2) doesn't exist meaningfully in the USA, i.e. tablets in the USA are iPads. You want to train students on today's technology, which the original LAUSD superintendent did then iPads are much more desirable. You are absolutely correct the alternatives may be better in all those other ways.
No they didn't even examine the curriculum in depth. They didn't understand what they were buying.
Summary didn't mention this but Pearson is a huge global education player. Just a few of their brands: Addison–Wesley, BBC Active, Bug Club, eCollege, Fronter, Longman, MyEnglishLab, Penguin Readers, Prentice Hall, Poptropica and Financial Times Press. So I don't see how LA Unified is going to avoid them.
As for this not meeting their needs... Reading the article LA Unified seems completely clueless. The contract was $768 / iPAD (I assume this includes warranty) + $200 / content & software license for 3 years. They according to the article are demanding that Apple fix the application, Apple didn't create the application nor does it own the content. They bought 43,261 iPads with the Pearson curriculum and 77,175 without. AFAICT Apple delivered their part. Their problem is the Pearson curriculum.
I can get that they don't like the app, but at this cost they can just write an app. The whole thing sounds like they don't know how to buy or deploy technology when it comes to a custom solution. Which is potentially understandable for a small district but inexcusable for a $1.3b contract.
I doubt that's the app, more likely the data set. The new image is much closer looking, better camera.
Well the Druze in Israel aren't under threat of death and they don't spread their faith. The Alawites are right now doing a pretty good defending not only defending their territory from the Sunni (al-Nusra and ISIS) but holding some of theirs. So at least it isn't clear they would.
Now I would agree those secret religions evolved in an environment where spread the faith was a good way to die. But the exception is getting harder to make.
Yes I was considering shunning to be harassment. Amish treat X-Amish much worse than they treat non-Amish and X-Amish can't be treated like non-Amish. They also gossip and pass this along so that everyone knows to treat this person badly. I'm not sure what distinction you are trying to make.
I'd say on average the Amish shunning is far worse. Obviously the very worst cases of Scientology are worse than the least bad cases among the Amish.
Buddhism is functionally equivalent to religions with an explicit creator.
That's not true. You most certainly can layer systems other than Google Play on top of Android. For example: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OC...
The fact that something requires a developer (or more) just means it isn't designed for end users to do but rather manufacturers or service providers.
iOS is only sold by a single manufacturer and there are competing manufacturers. As long as high end Android exists there is no monopoly.
As for the rest...
I don't know what you mean by Apps competing with Apple removed. There are music apps competing with Garage Band. There are presentation apps competing with Keynote. There are word processing apps competing with Pages.... I'd say Apple demonstratively does allow competing applications.
As for inability to install 3rd party firmware... Apple allows you to install 3rd party firmware it just completely voids the warranty and makes you unable to use the rest of the services.
You most certainly can have a competing app store. Apple even sells the server solution: https://developer.apple.com/pr...
I'm not following your argument at all.
Android is a phone operating system with limited functionality that can support multiple layers on top providing a full application API including Google Play. Android is open source.
Google Play is a product designed to run on Android. It is included with some phones and not with others. Google play is not open source.
How are they abusing open source?
No it wouldn't. Nokia had tremendous restructuring costs. Microsoft was providing large subsidies in exchange for the exclusive use of WindowsPhone OS. Without those subsidies Nokia's restructuring costs and higher costs of manufacturing means it can't be cost competitive with the Asian manufacturers and goes bankrupt. There is no Nokia if they follow your advice. Instead Elop gets them through the restructuring and then gets the company sold for $7b.
Are you sure they don't control "an app distribution channel" for Android? You can load other app distribution systems in. Not saying that Google isn't potentially a monopoly at this point, but it is hard to see where they have engaged in restraint given that you can layer anything on top of Android in place of play. Heck Microsoft is looking at .NET for Android.
They are credobaptists so not joining as a youth is not the same as quitting as an adult.
They don't have to be correct about the creator they just have to focus on it or be functionally equivalent to a body that does.
I was listing church discipline as applied to membership and not just ministers / pastors.
Of course not. The LDS church, along with most churches are quite nice to non-members. The question is the attitude towards X-members, apostate LDS. There can be (though it has dropped off in the last few decades) harassment, shunning... of x-members.
You might be a bit confused (at least in the USA) between non-profit (i.e. a 501 organization) and not making a profit. Lots of non-profits turn profits in particular years, they just have tremendous restrictions on what they can do with the money. In exchange they don't pay taxes.
As for Islam they mostly don't abuse the non-profit status by excessive spending. New Agers seem to be the worst on that front.
A Dallas Cowboy Fanclub would likely be a non-profit. There are advantages and disadvantages in being a religion. What advantage would it be seeking in becoming a religion that they wouldn't have as a non-profit?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...