UK Schools At Risk of Microsoft Lock-In 162
Robert writes "UK schools and colleges that have signed up to Microsoft Corp's academic licensing programs face the significant potential of being locked in to the company's software, according to an interim review by Becta, the UK government agency responsible for technology in education. The report also states that most establishments surveyed do not believe that Microsoft's licensing agreements provide value for money." In a separate report, Becta offered the opinion that schools should avoid Vista for at least another year, since neither Vista nor Office 2007 offers any compelling reasons for schools to upgrade.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
-eleventyone, Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this even news? What's next, if you spend a dollar today, you don't have a dollar tomorrow?
A good start (Score:5, Insightful)
Common sense arrives at last. It's only taken more than a decade! Now, could we possibly do something about the actual REAL problem, being the Research Machines monopoly over just about every government contract to do with schools and the majority of the school market in the UK despite their poor support, substandard hardware, astronomical pricing and hard-sales tactics and MS-only policies that thus reinforce the MS monopoly?
(If you didn't already guess, I work in schools within the UK).
Re:More a problem with the UK than US? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ummm, So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
ICT teaching is more than learning how to use Microsoft Office. It's about modelling, problem solving, that kind of stuff. Done correctly, using Office isn't a problem, and neither is using Open Office, Textease, Tizzy's First Tools or any of the other myriad software programs UK schools make use of on a daily basis.
Re:-eleventyone, Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
ALL schools, or in fact anyone who signs an über-licensing agreement with MS are at risk for "lock in", especially if you define "lock in" as being "we spent all our money on products from company X, so we have none left to buy products from company Y".
That's not "lock-in." That is "limited resources to allocate," something entirely different. Anyone spending money pretty much assumes they have limited resources and are not surprised by that fact. What does surprise people is that when a purchasing decision they make today results in purchasing decisions they make in 5 years being made for them because the product they bought is intentionally designed to not work with open standards or components from anyone else.
How is this even news?
This is news because people are still making decisions on behalf of constituents and children that result in long term risks for short term gains.
Re:Ummm, So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's exactly what I think. The time for the Windows era to come to an end is nigh [catb.org].
The only remaining question is will Windows' successor be Mac OS X or Linux, or will we (finally) evolve to the point that the choice of platform no longer matters.
I'm betting on the latter, myself.
Re:Ummm, So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
I vote for "none of the above - it hasn't been developed yet." All three popular systems are based on underlying structures that are getting to be very long in the tooth.
-b.
Re:-eleventyone, Obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't the issue. The issue is:
"We can't use a product which company Y supplies for free because our products from company X don't play well with it. Thus we are stuck with purchasing further products from company X."
KFG
Re:Ummm, So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
In actual fact, you would end up with better windows users if they were exposed to *nix first. At least they'd be able to think for themselves.
I can confirm this (Score:5, Insightful)
As the parent of 3 children in the Scottish school system (which is substantially different from the system in England and Wales) I can confirm that M$ has a strangle hold on education in my country. A couple of years ago I sent a detailed letter expressing my concerns to the local director of education. After some time I received a considered response saying that M$ is the only game in town and that alternatives are irrelevant at best. Some of the phrasing in this letter I recognised from previous /. stories concerning M$ FUD, I suspect that the director of education contacted her IT dept. who in turn contacted their software vendor (M$) seeking reasons to justify the status quo.
Personally I blame the IT staff who tend to be very M$ centric and in the business for the perceived financial rewards rather than the love of IT itself. They will never recommend the use of something they don't understand as they will have to retrain and/or find themselves looking for another job. Windows as we know it is on the way out, in a decade or so it will no longer have a monopoly on the desktop or anywhere else.
It is my belief that teaching 'The Windows way' is harmful to my children's education, they would be much better served by learning software that conforms to true standards and that fosters a real understanding of the principles involved in IT rather than simple button clicking. I run Linux exclusively at home (I've been Windows free since ME), my daughters both understand IT well and rarely have to come to me for help with their web pages or anything else. They have both avoided studying IT subjects at school as they view the IT syllabus as 'A joke', their words, not mine.
Re:Ummm, So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to add, though, that far too often, those who were given specific training in something like MS Office, are completely lost when they are introduced to anything else. For example, Lotus Notes vs. MS Outlook. On job postings for a lot of administrative type jobs, you see "Must be proficient in " An applicant who was tought specifically how to do Outlook, will not even apply to a job that asks for Lotus. The idea that they are both just basically the same thing doesn't really stick. The same goes for any other piece of software. Operating systems are a good example, because I have observed the use of all 3 by n00bs. It's mostly a fear factor than anything really. I use Linux, the girlfriend used Windows (not anymore
The bean counters only reinforce the fear factor. They reason that we must teach our kids on the same thing they will be using in the "real world." Unfortunately, you are only creating a robot, who is programmed to do one thing and cannot think and learn for itself.
Re:what! (Score:1, Insightful)
Everyone is always going on and on about how bad M$ is, but the truth is that Apple really is just as bad.
Posting AC because there are a little too much Apple-fanboys around here...
Re:More a problem with the UK than US? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ummm, So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now Me...Me was a dog when it came out and everybody knew it. Fortunately for MS, it was introduced alongside what is arguable Microsoft's best OS to date, Windows 2000.
Re:why not to use them in schools (Score:2, Insightful)
Long in the tooth OSs (Score:3, Insightful)
The fundamental design of the automobile hasn't changed much in over a hundred years. It still has an internal combustion engine (albeit sometimes augmented with electric), four wheels with pneumatic tires, a steering control based on a wheel that operates the front two wheels, a geared transmission from the engine to the wheels, a cabin in the middle with engine space and cargo space on front and back (albeit sometimes reversed). Sure, we've seen improvements--seatbelts, increasing automation, crumple zones--but the fundamental design hasn't changed. I don't seriously expect it to either. We're not suddenly going to be zooming around in South Park style "IT" wheels.
Similarly, the fundamental design of the camera didn't change much for a long time. Lens at the front, rectangular body containing film on a spool which moves past the rear of the lens, rotary controls on the lens, shutter top right of the body, eyepiece or viewing screen on the back. Digital has been the biggest shakeup, but you'll notice digital SLRs are still the same basic shape as film SLRs, even though there's no reason at all why they need to be.
Analog wristwatches are another example. They haven't changed design in several hundred years. Same 12 hours arranged in a circle, long hand and short hand, adjustment control on the right edge of the case, strap attached at top and bottom of case. When they went digital, there was a brief change, but now we've mostly swung back to using hands that move in a circle again, just with a different mechanism inside. And again, a quick look at Tokyoflash's web site will prove that there's absolutely no reason why this basic design needs to be kept. But it is. And we still have mechanical watches made and sold that use the same hundred-plus year old mechanisms.
I'm not saying that Unix is perfect; I'm just saying that its organic community-led growth and continued robustness and adaptability make it seem likely to me that the basic design is sound, and not something that needs to be thrown away.
There are certainly interesting possibilities in alternative OS design. The Apple Newton was a good example. But most of the radical attempts to reinvent the OS have failed. It might be that the design we've arrived at with Unix is going to last for hundreds of years, much to some people's disgust.
Re:I can confirm this (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a lot of the "better the devil you know" element to it - if they opt to throw away Windows in favor of a new system that none of the staff know and it goes tits-up they will be for the high jump. Everyone knows Windows is a heap of crap and accepts it. If you put in a new system which turns out "worse", then you're in trouble from everyone who has to use it. (Where "worse" may simply be "doesn't run application X").
It is my belief that teaching 'The Windows way' is harmful to my children's education, they would be much better served by learning software that conforms to true standards and that fosters a real understanding of the principles involved in IT rather than simple button clicking.
I'd agree with that. I've seen too many people take one look at a machine running Gnome and walk away without even trying to use it, even if they only wanted to browse the web or something, and even if there are plenty of people around to show them how to use it. These days, everyone is learning Windows by rote and as a result is never gaining the simple problem solving abilities needed to transfer their skills to another system, no matter how similar the systems are. And of course, these skill transferrance abilities are fairly important, not least because even the interfaces on Windows and common applications change drastically between versions.
Back when I was at school we used Acorns - originally BBC's and then RiscOS machines. At the time I really didn't see the point in learning a system that I would never need in the real world. However, many years on my view point has changed significantly and I can see that learning one system and then having to adapt to another helps you learn how to transfer skills to a different platform.
IMHO, the national curriculum should dictate that schools teach IT across several platforms - e.g. Windows, OS X, Linux, so that pupils learn how to deal with things that don't work _exactly_ as they had previously learnt, and broadens their awareness of more than one OS. Unfortunately, without an injection of cash there's no way the schools could afford the equipment, sysadmins and training for the teachers.
The really sad thing is that people look at the special educational pricing that MS provide and see it as nothing but a good thing because after all, it's helping the education of the kids. Very few people see the danger of letting a single company dictate what children are taught.
Lock-In inevitable result of Monopoly... (Score:4, Insightful)
When you have a vast, overwelming quasi-nationalized top-down educational beurocracy, with and almost total monopoly of education - the inevitable result is exploitive locked-in contracts with huge companies like Microsoft. Instead of Microsoft having to win over tens of thousands of individual schools, Microsoft only has to win over a few people at the top of the beurocracy. Bribing and misleading tens of thousands of IT people, all across the country would be prohibitivly difficult and expensive, where as bribing and misleading a few high officials costs virtually nothing when you are talking the huge potential profits.
Big government contracts, and big government policies, are naturally prone to extreme amounts of corruption and exploitation, because the stakes are so high and because authority are so centralized. You have to fight Microsoft on the level of the federal government, which is going to be impossible for your average parent. An average parent can walk over and talk to the head IT guy at the local school, or make an appoitment with the local municipal superintendant or mayor - But the average person can't fly off to meet with the head of the Ministry of Education, or the Prime Minister.
Don't blame Microsoft for this problem - they are simply exploiting the natural flaws in the educational leviatian. If they were gone, another company would simply find another way to exploit the system.
Re:Another Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
1) We need a way to pressure the school board into buying about 500 new PCs....
2) We tested a number of our aging and poorly-written edutainment titles on RC2, and most of them didn't work....
In technical circles, this approach is known as 'New Bugs For Old', wherein you trade a host of new (but unknown) problems for a heap of old and all-too-familiar problems. The beauty of this approach is that no one can fault the logic of the switch until after the deployment is under way and the new problems begin to emerge. It has been effective for as long as humanity has had a weakness for shiny new things.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go. I'm trying to pre-purchase my new iPhone. 8^)
Re:Another Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
This coming from the guy heading out to buy a version 1.0 Apple product...
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go. I'm trying to pre-purchase my new iPhone."
Re:Another Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course a thin client GNU/Linux [ltsp.org] set-up would also help push you to web-based curriculum software, with the added benefit of all the flexibility that Free Software brings.
However that would save taxpayers' money, resulting in a reduced departmental budget, and we know managers don't like that sort of thing :-/