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On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 10:45:38AM +0000, james kilty wrote:
> I am raising this with a governor of my local school (the largest in
> Cornwall) and hope to make some progress, at least to understand the
> limitations imposed on the system. It would be best if members
> interested (if they haven't already) talked to the IT managers in the
> schools involved with Linux (or abandoning it - not completely!) as my
> knowledge is skimpy to say the least. But I'll do what I can within my
> limitations.
I have been thinking about this Becta stuff and the Early Day Motion.
Previous experience is that when recommending change sooner or later it
comes down to the cost, and if I can explain in words of one syllable
how much
- A change will cost
- A change will save
Then "Managers" are more willing to at least look at the alternatives
(because budgets are always tight). It might be that the school may then
decide to stick to Microsoft because of specific key software packages,
but the review will at least cause them to look more closely at their
costs.
If I look at the Becta site
http://tinyurl.com/y7tzkd for Local Authorities
http://tinyurl.com/y3a6me for Choosing system and tool software
Then frankly I would not blame any school for sticking with Microsoft
For example a case study http://tinyurl.com/yyp4l4 they state
The school has been awarded technology college status, has 1,300
pupils and 52 members of staff. They need to buy appropriate
software licences for 300 desktop computers and four servers. The
software purchases needs to provide network, email and desktop
solutions throughout the school and accommodate the future addition
of administration systems.
For software licences which meet all the requirements of our case
study, the overall annual cost would be £8,425 or £25, 275 over
three years.
By comparison, purchasing the same software under a non-educational
licence agreement would cost the equivalent of £25,532 per year,
more than three times the price!
Now frankly from a personal perspective I would have thought that any
Local Authority that sticks with MS is probably wasting money
As compared to this the Bristol business case was that for them as a
local authority to switch from MS Office to OpenOffice was
- Cost to switch £ 670,000
- Cost to implement MS Office £1,700,000
http://tinyurl.com/yft2kl
http://tinyurl.com/yd7hwz
Anyway, does any one have any figures for how much MS charges schools
and how much a school could save by switching to Opensource?
--
Henry
Wed Dec 6 12:31:17 GMT 2006
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