UK schools could halve IT spending by dumping Microsoft
Black Elk
Open source schools save millions
By Paul Hales: Friday 06 May 2005, 17:25
UK PRIMARY SCHOOLS could halve their IT budgets it they stopped buying
Microsoft software, research carried out by the British Educational
Communications and Technology Association (Becta) suggests.
Education rag TES says it has seen a copy of the report which won't be
published until Friday May 13th.
Microsoft is apparently not named in the report, but the research compares
IT costs at 33 schools which used paid-for software with costs at those
which use free, open-source products.
It found that primary schools could half their expenditure by going the open
source route. Secondary schools could cut their budgets by a quarter, the
report will state.
UK schools spend around £1 billion on IT equipment and software each year.
Dumping Microsoft could help them save millions.
Becta signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft in 2003 which it
reckoned would save schools in England £46 million over three years.
At the time, Education Secretary, Charles Clarke said the agreement was a
"significant step" towards ensuring "our children with the ICT skills that a
21st century economy demands."
Now it looks like they'll be going back to the blackboard.
Microsoft says it won't comment on the report before it sees a copy.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23070
--
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we, They never stop
thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do
we."
George W. Bush
August 5, 2004
--
The fair use of a copyrighted work:
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site
is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
George Harrison
Microsoft in favor of Linux for security reasons. Microsoft is always
plagued by viruses that Linux easily rejects. Linux is also faster.
Linux is a lot more cheaper as well. I would like to make the
change, myself, by creating a dual boot system.
Black Elk
"George Harrison" <G_Har...@Yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:117sm2a...@news.supernews.com...
> More corporation including Homeland Security have dropped
> Microsoft in favor of Linux for security reasons. Microsoft is always
> plagued by viruses that Linux easily rejects. Linux is also faster.
> Linux is a lot more cheaper as well. I would like to make the
> change, myself, by creating a dual boot system.
Unfortunately Linux hasn't perfected its desktop OS. It's getting close but
still needs some fine tuning. I'm seriously thinking of making a permanent
switch to Linux because of the proprietary nature of XP and the even more so
Longhorn.
--
"Those seeking profits," Jefferson wrote, "were they given total freedom,
would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights
secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source
of corruption in government. No other depositories of power have ever yet
been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings
of those committed to their charge."
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0618-03.htm
rhook...@hotmail.com
Unfortunately Linux hasn't perfected its desktop OS. It's getting close
but
still needs some fine tuning. I'm seriously thinking of making a
permanent
switch to Linux because of the proprietary nature of XP and the even
more so
Longhorn.
>
Well Longhorn is a ways off still.
Certainly for larger servers, run by skilled IT staff, a Linux machine
with Oracle and Tomcat will perform network, C++ and Java, and save a
huge organization a good deal of money.
Or they can fall in to a trap of countless bespoke applications written
by coders more concerned about proving some point about MS then about
building real solutions.
As for British schools, MS solutions have provided real cost benefits
to the people of the UK, most noteworthy is the Government Gateway
which was built in 90 days using MS Biztalk and provides Web Service
authentication and services to the entire UK government.
As for British schools, most schools can provide perhaps one ICT
instructor to both run the school's systems and teach the students
skills of the future. Since students will be working with Windows
Office applications Open source schools would become a confused mess of
either Windows VM running the tools students need to learn, or just
large messes down for most of the time.
As for a desktop computer I have a Linux box at my office. It had a
great web server and was very fast and I was impressed in its
robustness and reliability, but when I had problems they were a pain in
the ass taking much more time to fix.
As for X-windows, it's just as good as WindowsXP once you learn it, but
the programs still are not out there. There are tons of GNU and other
open source applications to develop in it and if you know Emachs you
have an excellent text and code editing suit, but the major software
venders lack the tools for Linux.
In both work, and finishing a major skills upgrade in Java, I found
myself constantly turning to my Mac for graphic design and cross
platform testing, and windows for development.
The modern office could not function without the products of Microsoft.
Outlook is the standard email reader, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word are
the tools of the modern knowledge economy and though you can create RTF
and CSV files more and more you get files from users with more and more
Windows applications inserted you need a a Windows 2000 machine with
office XP or greater just to work with most offices.
In many areas Windows tools are vastly substandard on performance, but
still standard. There are countless cheaper better tools than Visio,
Project, Access, and SharePoint Portal Services, but these are the
standard tools in the business world. Only in the cases of Web
Content Management, UML code, Portals, and other nerdy things where
Microsoft does not have a strong product are other venders even
standing a chance.
BUT with the new Open Standards converntions from SOAP, RSS, BPEL, XML,
LDAP and HTTP its starting to be possible to connect different machines
together to work in what is called a Service Architecture.
Perhaps some open source apps will start being able to stand along
Microsoft in the Open Standards world, and that would be good. But
taking the UK schools off Microsoft would hurt the education of
children and cost the government a fortune.
Rincewind
> Unfortunately Linux hasn't perfected its desktop OS. It's getting close
> but still needs some fine tuning.
What do you feel needs tuning? I have Linux, Windows 98SE, Windows 2000
server and Windows XP Pro on my multi-boot workstation. I only use the
Windows installations for testing and for applications which are not
available in a Linux version(mostly music apps). For everything else I use
the Linux installation.
Microsoft has made much of Windows XP 64 and Longhorn. Well wow! Linux has
been available in a 64 bit version for over a year already and transparent
windows, the main new feature of longhorn, have been available on the
Linux desktop for years!
--
Rinso
/\
/ \
/wizz\
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harvey
<rhook...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1115580346.4...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Well, clearly you're a fascist. Ain't that right, Black Elk? You just
fucked up, Hooker... you're in for it now...
You got a cat, Hooker?
Black Elk
That seems to contradict the article and the study it cites. Why would this
be?
--
The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million
last year (2003), while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million,
the Census Bureau reported Thursday (August 27, 2004).
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/08/26/census.poverty.ap/
>