January 11, 2008
We don’t need no Windows Vista
Classrooms were never going to be the first place you’d expect to find the latest versions of Windows and Office. Nevertheless, the short shrift given to Vista and Office 2007 by the British Educational Communications and Technology Association this week sounds particularly harsh:
From the agency’s summary of its 1-year study:
The new features of Microsoft’s Vista product added value but did not justify early deployment in the education sector. The deployment costs were seen as high and the benefits were far from clear.
Office 2007 contained no "must-have" features and Microsoft should develop an underpinning business case to justify deployment in the education sector.
There were interoperability concerns regarding Office 2007; and Microsoft should urgently provide "native" support for the Open Document Format (ODF.)
After its rejection last September, Microsoft will make another bid next month for international backing for its own new "open" document standard. This is a reminder of how much is at stake.
A friend of mine works in a pawn shop. He tells me they have a stock of next to useless laptops. Customers pawn their lap tops for 30 days. After 28 days of inactivity on any sort of network Vista times out and locks out until the user contacts Microsoft. Result is that when the customer comes in one month later they takes one look at the now useless laptop and leave it with the shop. Its not worth the shop registering a new copy of Vista so …………
Posted by: laurenceg | January 14th, 2008 at 3:43 pm | Report this commentWhy would a school spend all that money on upgrading to Vista anyway? Why do schools spend money on MS Office products at all? There are many high quality office suites that teach the basics spreadsheets, word processors etc., without the cost! Microsoft has a long history of not playing fair with competition, industry, governments and consumers, and it’s a tragedy that BECTA would let them anywhere near our schools without resolving some of these critical issues
SV
Posted by: Sredni Vashtar | January 17th, 2008 at 9:07 am | Report this comment