On Mon, 2007-10-29 at 20:00 -0500, Sean W. O'Quin wrote: > Notable quotes from Becta - British Educational Communications and > Technology Agency on their recent recommendation against Vista and Microsoft > Office for Britain's education system. > > > "Becta's advice to schools considering moving to Microsoft's School > Agreement subscription licensing model is that they should not do so. > > It reminds schools they are legally obliged to have licensed software, but > suggests they use instead what is known as "perpetual licensing". > > This gives the permanent right to use the software and requires no ongoing > payments beyond the purchase price. > > The advantage to schools in using a subscription service such as Microsoft's > is that smaller, annual payments are involved rather than a larger one-off > cost. > > But a spokesman for Becta said the problem was that Microsoft required > schools to have licences for every PC in a school that might use its > software, whether they were actually doing so or running something else."
Some here might remember that I made a similar complaint to the UK Office of fair trading back in 2003. At the time it was difficult to gather the right sort of evidence and as an individual in a small business my resources are limited. Ironically the MS monopoly is so all encompassing when you ask people about machines running no MS software they don't know there is an option. Unless they are well informed, they don't give the right answers. This is changing and so the BECTA (who have the weight of government backing) complaint is probably timed well. The OFT didn't rule one way or the other on my original complaint but left the file open. Since then Norway has successfully renegotiated schools agreement without the requirement to pay for machines running no MS software using their competition law. Norway is not an EU member but the UK is so if the UK gets the same concession as Norway it will have to apply throughout the EU. In addition, if governments judge MSSA to be unlawful there should be more fines. I have resubmitted my original complaint with some significant additional evidence. If MSSA is judged to be illegal there would be good grounds for compensation. Its been around a long time and anyone trying to get eg GNU/Linux or OpenOffice.org into schools has a strong argument that it has damaged their business. If anyone in a business in an EU member state has evidence of this drop me an E-mail. The sort of thing needed is a school that has said something like "We liked your ideas about using OOo (or GNU Linux) but we are using MSSA and it will be too expensive to make that sort of change" > "In a previous report, Becta said primary schools could typically save up to > 50% and secondary schools more than 20% of their ICT costs if they switched > to what is known as "open source" software. > > In its complaint it also identifies potential difficulties for schools, > pupils and parents who wish to use alternatives to Microsoft's Office suite, > such as Open Office or Star Office, because they may not be compatible." Which is more pressure on MS to support true interoperability through the take up and support of ODF. > Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7063716. Ian -- New QCA Accredited IT Qualifications www.theINGOTs.org You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
