Don't Upgrade to Vista, UK Gov't Agency Tells Schools

Cthippo · 11 Jan 2008

PC World said:

British schools should not upgrade to Microsoft's Vista operating system and Office 2007 productivity suite, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) said in a report on the software. It also supported use of the international standard ODF (Open Document Format) for storing files.

Schools might consider using Vista if rolling out all-new infrastructure, but should not introduce it piecemeal alongside other versions of Windows, or upgrade older machines, said the agency, which is responsible for advising British schools and colleges on their IT use.

"We have not had sight of any evidence to support the argument that the costs of upgrading to Vista in educational establishments would be offset by appropriate benefit," it said.

The cost of upgrading Britain's schools to Vista would be �175 million (US$350 million), around a third of which would go to Microsoft, the agency said. The rest would go on deployment costs, testing and hardware upgrades, it said.

Even that sum would not be enough to purchase graphics cards capable of displaying Windows Aero Graphics, although that's no great loss because "there was no significant benefit to schools and colleges in running Aero," it said.

As for Office 2007, "there remains no compelling case for deployment," the agency said in its full report, published this week.

The agency was equally skeptical about the benefits of Vista and Office 2007 last January, when it published an interim report based on its evaluation of beta versions of the new software. Then, it advised that the added value of Vista's new features was not sufficient to justify the cost of deployment, while Office 2007 contained no "must-have" features.

In this year's report, BECTA warned schools that do choose to use Office 2007 to avoid Microsoft's OOXML (Office Open XML) document format because of concerns about compatibility between different applications-- even though interoperability is one of the benefits Microsoft claims for the format.

It called on schools to make teachers, parents and pupils more aware of free alternatives to Microsoft's products, and asked the IT industry to facilitate their use.

The agency also recommended setting up desktops to make it easy to use such open-source applications, and advised schools to insist their suppliers deliver office productivity software that can open and save ODF documents, setting it as the default file format.

However, it slammed Microsoft for dragging its feet with incorporating support for ODF in Office 2007.

"While the product includes the functionality to read virtually every other relevant file format 'out of the box', the processes for dealing with ODF files are very cumbersome," BECTA wrote.

In addition, it said, ODF file converters provided by Microsoft are not intuitive because they behave differently from the regular file save dialogs.

"We believe that these arrangements present sufficient technical difficulties for the majority of users to make them disinclined to use competitor products and this may weaken competition," the agency said.
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Original story

I'm sure MS couldn't care less, but every little drop...

Guest-23315 · 11 Jan 2008

We've had it on all school PC's since the summer.

Its fun because they are all old P4's

Ramble · 11 Jan 2008

I agree. Anyone who's used school computer knows they are pieces of **** not capable of even running 2000 with any speed. Upgrade them to Vista and they'll die.

DaveVader · 11 Jan 2008

all of our school PC's have Vista. It's not too slow either.

badders · 11 Jan 2008

Is this a good case for getting everyone using FOSS?

Kipman725 · 11 Jan 2008

college uses XP which works fine, think they have some macs somewhere aswell but no one apart from art teachers use them as macs are overated. What they do need are bigger screens! 15" of 1024x768 is not enough.

Stompy · 11 Jan 2008

I love my school... 90% of the PCs are Core 2 Duos with 2gb ram etc., lightning fast. The other 10% are specialist machines for music/video editing etc.

seebul · 11 Jan 2008

Yeh well cant really see any benifit Vista would have on schools... maybe some better networking stuff? Dunno though never used it.
my college has nothin' but Mac's

Gravemind123 · 12 Jan 2008

My school has a few rooms of PentiumDs and the library and other labs are PentiumDs, each also has 1GB of ram and an X600SE, nice for running XP on. The rest of the computers are either P4 laptops(P4 1.XGHz, 256Mb ram) or P4 desktops(P4 1.XGHz, 128-256Mb of ram), these suck at running XP but did ok back when they were 2000. The exception being the CAD lab with P4 1.8GHz, 768Mb of ram and a Matrox card for hardware acceleration, which makes CAD still run smooth on XP.

Vista would not run that smooth on any of these computers if you figure for anti-virus and the software of that nature.

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Don't Upgrade to Vista, UK Gov't Agency Tells Schools

Cthippo Can't mod my way out of a paper bag

Guest-23315 Guest

Ramble Ginger Nut

DaveVader Fast Action Response Team

badders Neuken in de Keuken

Kipman725 When did I get a custom title!?!

Stompy What's a Dremel?

seebul Minimodder

Gravemind123 avatar not found

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Don't Upgrade to Vista, UK Gov't Agency Tells Schools

Cthippo Can't mod my way out of a paper bag

Guest-23315 Guest

Ramble Ginger Nut

DaveVader Fast Action Response Team

badders Neuken in de Keuken

Kipman725 When did I get a custom title!?!

Stompy What's a Dremel?

seebul Minimodder

Gravemind123 avatar not found

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