[LINK] Microsoft pushes Vista for school laptops

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

Microsoft pushes Vista for school laptops
By Ry Crozier
9 February 2009 09:25AM
iTnews
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/95788,microsoft-pushes-vista-for-school-laptops.aspx

Microsoft is backing Vista as its platform of choice for the Federal 
Government’s student laptop project, despite XP’s dominance in the 
netbook market.

The software giant told iTnews that it was participating in about a 
"half dozen" bids with OEMs and systems integrators for the state rollouts.

Its education director, Neil Jackson, said Microsoft would back bids 
that used either Vista or XP laptops but would "love it" if the 
deployments ran off the Vista operating system.

"We're absolutely about Windows Vista as the best platform locally to be 
loaded onto the client," Jackson said.

"There have already been significant orders placed on our OEMs to run 
Vista for education [purposes]."

Jackson cited a deal last week in which the Victorian Department of 
Education will roll out 10,000 Lenovo and Acer netbooks to 
schoolchildren as an example. it had "embraced Vista", Jackson said.

And he said that Microsoft would seek to install software on the 
netbooks rather than push applications into the "cloud" to save money.

Late last year, a Microsoft spokesperson suggested the cloud may be an 
option to reduce licensing costs. It was speculated recently that 
Windows licensing could make it difficult for OEMs to deliver a laptop 
within the unit-price limits set out in requests for proposals. But 
Jackson said that the software component of the bids "is only a small 
part of the overall cost endured by the partners".

That response is unlikely to sate the open-source community, which is 
pushing for more of its software in schools as part of the laptops for 
schools project.

Speaking to iTnews as part of his recent visit to Australia, Sun's 
global chief open source officer Simon Phipps said that using 
"unnecessary" proprietary software in schools is a waste of money and a 
situation that's long overdue for reform.

"Giving every child a netbook buys you nothing if the software schools 
are incentivised to install then takes away [students'] freedom," Phipps 
said.

He called on education IT service providers and federal and state 
governments to embrace open-source technologies.

He said there is a possibility that the Gershon Review might shine a 
light on how much taxpayers spent on proprietary tools when there is a 
free or open source alternative.

But he said he was aware of the challenges of turning the education 
sector on to open-source platforms.

"Things like electronic whiteboards in schools are endemic and create a 
dependence on Windows software," Phipps said.

Microsoft's Jackson said that he believed the "on-costs" of moving away 
from a Windows environment in schools could prove challenging.

"The familiarity benefits of Windows can't be overestimated. The 
retraining that would be required to transition to open source far 
outweighs the benefit," Jackson said.

"We continue to deal with all state departments to try and simplify our 
licensing and make it easier to acquire and deploy our technology."

-- 
 
Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au