What "must-haves" did you see at BETT?

[m0nty]

So, I didn't make it to BETT and (because of pressure of work) my colleague didn't make it either. But since you guys did go, what things made you go "Oooh! Gotta have that" and will actually be in your budget proposals for next year? Cool stuff, hardware or software, whatever, would love to hear about it.

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Simon

[Sylv3r]

I was a little disappointed with BETT yesterday I wouldn't say there was anything that had the 'wow' factor. A lot of the products on sale were on sale last year too. I wonder if the tightening of school purse strings has had an affect on the amount of time and money developers have put in developing new solutions.

I am back tomorrow, so I'll be checking again incase I missed anything.

[leco]

Similar thoughts here although I did like the Casio projector, the one on the LG (I think, got confused as to where I was) stand was nicer. Small so very portable, no lamp as per Casio, no probs with dust etc. Not too bad a price either given that there would be no replacement lamps to buy.

The teacher I was with bought Classroom Monitor for recording assessments. Easy to use for the teachers and will give SMT lots of nice graphics to wow the Governors. She also had a long talk about Ruckus but I'm not holding my breath on that one as our budget is very, very small next year. Plus we already have a Wifi controller.

I have to say that I also liked the walk-on interactive boards. Silly really liked walking in the puddles, call it the child in me

[NBC_Sys_C-ord]

Casio projector is the only wow that we found (and the edugeek stand), bett not as good as prev years and freebees ver low

[tmcd35]

Well, I was most impressed given this was my first BETT. So much to see, so much to do and so little time to do it in.

Finally got to the Casio stand at 5:50pm and wow. At £700 for the base model - a bargin. I for one am going to rework our projector replacement strategy to move to these. I recon a 7 year replacement strategy is more than possible - That's £100 a year for a projector!

My colleague hasn't stopped raving about Microsoft's Multipoint Server 2010. Definitely a highlight of the show for me and a product to watch.

Also Ergo's power management solution took me by surprise. MSI installs and AD integration. The product seems more powerful and better integrated than I thought it'd be.

The price of Lenovo's All-in-One desktop PC was a bit of a shocker. The rep. reconed something around the £350-£400 mark. Nice!

The Microsoft Surface PC on Edugeek's stand was also very, very impressive. Not sure how to use it in a school environment - apart from writing an air hockey or table-football game. But still very nice to see in action.

I'm sure there were other highlights, but my head is still swimming - only just got home and sat down. Still the most important thing is I nabbed me an Edugeek mug

EDIT: (shameless plug) I've posted more detail on my visit to BETT and the highlights for me over at my blog http://tmcd35.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/bett-2010/

[leco]

Casio projector is the only wow that we found (and the edugeek stand), bett not as good as prev years and freebees ver low

Yes you really had to work at each stand to get anything at all - well apart from Edugeek that is.

[witch]

Casio projector was the one thing I saw that I really really want

[Domino]

The Microsoft Surface PC on Edugeek's stand was also very, very impressive. Not sure how to use it in a school environment - apart from writing an air hockey or table-football game. But still very nice to see in action.

its actually not a surface.

Its a product from SMART, that works in a similar way, but obviously more education based

[m0nty]

Thanks for the responses, gives me something to think about for a while. There's wild talk of a budget "squeeze" where I am too so I'm not sure if I'll get too many toys this year.

What was so good about the Casio projector, and which model was it? We have the usual pain and frustration with these things -- usually replacing one every couple of months or so.

--
Simon

[leco]

What was so good about the Casio projector, and which model was it? We have the usual pain and frustration with these things -- usually replacing one every couple of months or so.

--
Simon

Not sure of the model. What I liked, apart from the no lamp, adjustable size of display and auto focus. Means that I don't have to measure or even think of throw distance and existing poles or mounts will accommodate without having to re-install or re-locate.

[ChrisyB]

My colleague hasn't stopped raving about Microsoft's Multipoint Server 2010. Definitely a highlight of the show for me and a product to watch.

Did I mention that I really liked Multipoint Server 2010? I'm assuming here that I'm your colleague.

And does your head still hurt? I'm still processing everything we saw.

Personal top 3 things from BETT, the Casio XJ series projectors, Microsoft Multipoint Server 2010 and Serco entertaining me with beer and magic.

[IanT]

I liked the MASSIVE Panasonic touch screens one company had there!! - I was too scared to ask how much it was!

[torledo]

Well, I was most impressed given this was my first BETT. So much to see, so much to do and so little time to do it in.

Finally got to the Casio stand at 5:50pm and wow. At £700 for the base model - a bargin. I for one am going to rework our projector replacement strategy to move to these. I recon a 7 year replacement strategy is more than possible - That's £100 a year for a projector!

My colleague hasn't stopped raving about Microsoft's Multipoint Server 2010. Definitely a highlight of the show for me and a product to watch.

Also Ergo's power management solution took me by surprise. MSI installs and AD integration. The product seems more powerful and better integrated than I thought it'd be.

The price of Lenovo's All-in-One desktop PC was a bit of a shocker. The rep. reconed something around the £350-£400 mark. Nice!

The Microsoft Surface PC on Edugeek's stand was also very, very impressive. Not sure how to use it in a school environment - apart from writing an air hockey or table-football game. But still very nice to see in action.

I'm sure there were other highlights, but my head is still swimming - only just got home and sat down. Still the most important thing is I nabbed me an Edugeek mug

EDIT: (shameless plug) I've posted more detail on my visit to BETT and the highlights for me over at my blog BETT 2010 School Network Manager

multipoint by the looks of it appears to be an n-computing type product.

Would that be a fair assumption ?

[ChrisyB]

multipoint by the looks of it appears to be an n-computing type product.

Would that be a fair assumption ?

It's related to, but not a replacement for. It's a version of Windows Server designed to work with third-party hardware to give a "Microsoft legal" solution to licensing issues while giving additional tools to help with managing the "clients".

The hardware Microsoft were demoing was all HP stuff, but you could use it in conjuction with N-computing hardware.

I really hope I'm right, my heads still a little fuzzy from BETT yesterday. TMcD can correct me if I'm wrong.

[tmcd35]

It looks like Chris was paying attention and not falling a sleep at the back of the class . It's a version of Windows 2008 Server designed to provide a legal software half of a nComputing/SoftXpand solution. Looks like HP maybe first out the gate with hardware to support it and both nComputing and Wyse were mentioned as possible future OEM's. The software itself will be available via your select/open license agreements.

I'm very excited by this product