By Steve Ranger, 9 January 2006 12:25
NEWS
A review has been launched to examine the value for money and risks of lock-in involved with the use of Microsoft software by schools and colleges.
Becta, the agency which oversees use of IT in education, said it will review the 'value for money' of Microsoft's educational licensing programmes in the UK, including the range, scope and cost of academic licensing models available, and whether they meet the needs of UK schools and colleges.
The agency said its review will pay "particular attention" to Microsoft's subscription licensing models and the "risks associated with non-perpetual licences".
It will examine the total costs of exiting those licence agreements and the corresponding risks of "lock-in".
Becta said: "If risks are found, the report will seek to identify mechanisms whereby schools and colleges could mitigate those risks and protect their investment."
The agency said it wants to be sure that if a school or college opts for a subscription licensing deal, that terms of it "do not expose them to unacceptable risks such as unforeseen price rises or effectively lock them into a relationship with that licensor".
The review will consider the "educational advantages" of investing in products - including the forthcoming Vista operating system and Office 12 suite - compared to using existing software. It will also look at how often schools should renew these types of software.
Becta will also investigate how schools and colleges can get better access to alternatives to Microsoft products.
The agency said it is important that schools and colleges have access to a range of products - and where a single supplier is dominant, "particular vigilance" is needed to make sure schools aren't locked in by a licensing mechanism.
Becta chief executive Owen Lynch said in a statement: "I am particularly keen to ensure that where there are alternative products to those available from a dominant supplier, schools have easy access to them. We will explore with the industry whether in the case of products which are 'free' to the education sector it makes sense to reduce barriers to uptake by 'pre-loading' such offerings."
Microsoft said it will fully co-operate with Becta's review. Writing in a statement to silicon.com, the company's UK director of education David Burrows said: "Microsoft is confident that our products and solutions continue to deliver value for money and meet educational need. The licensing options offered to education customers were designed after close consultation with schools, colleges and universities."
The interim report is expected by June 2006.
Read the silicon.com leader on this subject here
Comments
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1. Neil
No mention of alternatives to Microsoft made in the article? What about OpenOffice? It certainly would be a product with no lockin. Could go the whole ewaty and put Linux on the desktop, but I recognsie that would be a very big change. But using a product like OpenOffice is not that much different from MS Office. My children use both, OpenOffice at home and MS Office at school. Could easily put Linux on the backend to replace the Windows Servers that are used in many schools. But you'd get a lot of FUD from RM who supply a lot of schools with software :)
2. anonymous
"What about OpenOffice? It certainly would be a product with no lockin."
All products have lock-in, in the important sense of the difficulty and cost of migrating content you've created, from the product you're using today, to another product. The total cost of ownership of a product includes the cost of migration as well as the cost of purchasing software/hardware and getting trained in its use. I don't know if BECTA is looking at TCO in that sense. Microsoft ads claim lower TCO than alternatives.
3. Neil
I understand what you're saying about all producrts having some type of lock in. But, with OpenOffice you can either save you documents in the OpenDocument format or as MS Office formats, such word, excel, etc. So if you decided to go back to MS Office, if you'd saved all you files in that format, there would bve no extra cost, apart from the software cost and installation.
4. David Fletcher
I've spoken to the head teacher at my son's school on a couple of occasions about giving open source a try, but there is no real interest. I think the causes of this problem are a combination partly of lack of time (not laziness I hope) but mostly the cheap deals that microsoft apparently offer to education.
I think that if they had to, microsoft would be willing (if not happy) to give software to schools for free, because it raises yet another generation of future workers with the belief that they can't use a computer without paying tribute to Bill Gates.
This is a disgusting situation, which is bad for the industries and economies of the entire world, as cash continues to be siphoned into the bulging bank account at Redmond for no real reason. The sooner this practice is stopped the better.