Chrome will bring about the ICT revolution in schools

Google Chrome netbooks are being targeted directly at education and for good reason. Initial press reactions to the Chrome-book are enthusiastic ... with two caveats. These are: ‘it’s a bit expensive for an empty book isn’t it?’ and ‘great concept … maybe too soon?’.

Nonsense, the Chrome books will save education an absolute fortune and render existing ICT models obsolete: here’s why.

The complicated bit: renting not buying.

School ICT write-down costs are done on a 5 year cycle, or should be. So, given a stock initial capital valuation of £100,000 that would represent about £20,000 per year depreciation. Of course historically few schools budget ICT this way and now have a shed load of near obsolete kit with running XP with no capital to replace it but needing an army of technicians to keep it going.

Google may have found the solution by offering a rent deal on their net-books. It all depends on the final monthly price offered to education (what price a generation of Chrome lovers?) and how long you have to pay before you get it to own it whether or not this is going to work.

But even so, taken in the round moving to rented netbooks should save enough per year to rent quite a few and at the same time free schools of the awful burden of maintaining let alone replacing complex ICT inventories.

I estimate real TCO reductions are in the order of £70k for a school of a thousand pupils.

My calculations tell me that, if Google can do this, a £11 per month rent and 18 months to ownership would enable schools to change to a sustainable, simpler and better way of computing.

Chrome will bring about the ICT revolution in schools. - Spannerman's Edublog

For curriculum systems, maybe. If the education sector is capable of providing support instead of slapping CD-ROM''s dating back to Windows 98 on subject leader;s desks.

For admins and teaching staff, still got to stick with the Win 7/Office 2010 combo to support the MIS.

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Originally Posted by CAM

For admins and teaching staff, still got to stick with the Win 7/Office 2010 combo to support the MIS.

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Fortunatly, Google seem to have realised that there'll need to be a transition period where everyone still has a bunch of crusty old Windows-only stuff that they need to run, so it looks like Chrome OS will include a Citrix client. That might be a corporate/education only version of Chrome OS, and I don't know if they'll also include a plain (and cheaper to implement) RDP client.

The rental is ongoing, it doesn't finish after 18 months, but it does include hardware upgrades, so you have 5 years rental not 18 months to compare like for like. You cannot get rid of MS licensing completely as you'll need to connect to a Cirix/RDP farm to run your Windows apps. You also need to seriously look at redundant internet connectivity as all your data will be in the cloud. You've also got to consider the apps which won't run through Citrix/TS so your going to need some PC's as well. You will still need technicians, they are still computers and will break, plus you'll need someone to shout at each time the cloud service breaks.
It's a nice idea, but the supposed TCO he is quoting is fantasy, in fact I can quite easily see a higher TCO than traditional PC's.

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Originally Posted by teejay

The rental is ongoing, it doesn't finish after 18 months, but it does include hardware upgrades, so you have 5 years rental not 18 months to compare like for like.

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So you get new laptops every 18 months?

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You cannot get rid of MS licensing completely as you'll need to connect to a Cirix/RDP farm to run your Windows apps.

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Initially, yes, but I reckon you can phase that out in the next 3 to 5 years. Don't forget there's the CALs cost for each client authenticating against Active Directory, too - there'll be a fee to pay for each device, whether it's connecting to a remote desktop server or not.

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You also need to seriously look at redundant internet connectivity as all your data will be in the cloud.

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I think the idea is that Chrome OS is designed to be able to locally cache data in some way, via Google Gears or a similar mechanism. I await the actual devices to see how much Google Docs, etc, are integrated into the OS - as a school or corporate customer, I think we'd prefer to keep our data on our own local servers and ignore Google's offerings if possible.

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You've also got to consider the apps which won't run through Citrix/TS so your going to need some PC's as well.

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I thought with the new server-side graphics cards it was possible to run video/3D applications over RDP? Expensive, perhapse, but probably worth it if you can cut down on the support needed.

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Originally Posted by dhicks

So you get new laptops every 18 months?

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I think what TeeJay meant was that you don't get to keep the ChromeBook's after 18 months - the rental period is actually 3 years. Once the three years is up you either give them back to Google and end the contract or sign up for another 3 years (and get brand new ChromeBooks - which is what the hardware auto-updates in the slide below refers to).

http://i.imgur.com/yX2QB.png

How many schools would be willing to pay ~£792 (£11 * 72) over six years for each ChromeBook/Box when they could get Windows laptops for the same price (or cheaper) and continue running all the software that they currently use today? :confused:

Oh goodie, another 'this will solve everything' thread, that always works out. I do however like how the chromebooks are helping me prove my point to the thickwits here in NZ.

NZ MoE neanderthols: Oh the cloud will solve everything, we can just put all the nasty complicated stuff that requires half a brain on teh interwebz thingy my nephew was talking about.
Chromebook suppliers: We are not releasing any Chromebooks in NZ at all because your internet infrastructure is too infantile to handle it and it would make us and the service look bad. Data caps, data rates, reliability etc.

It really does help prove my point that the clueless cloud boffins here in NZ are currently barking up the wrong tree, at least until we get the propper infrastructure to actually support it and that does not include schools running off single ADSL lines.

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Originally Posted by CAM

For admins and teaching staff, still got to stick with the Win 7/Office 2010 combo to support the MIS.

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Yeh, there you're right the MIS lockin is total, almost a crime in my opinion...just when does the obligation expire..never?

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Originally Posted by teejay

It's a nice idea, but the supposed TCO he is quoting is fantasy, in fact I can quite easily see a higher TCO than traditional PC's.

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You just can not say that any change means that it will simply cost more...the logical corollary of this (oft repeated) assertion about any change is that the only 'solution' is a tweak of the status quo...sorry you of course CAN keep saying just that but fewer are listenng.

Forget the rent period and price as is now. The easiest thing in the world for a mega corp is to pitch the price right..my post suggested the right price not the press quoted prices..we all know that the likes of Google and Microsoft for that matter could give it away free to education if they wanted to..and they just might

You're right, if they did it for that sort of money it would be a great deal. I for one am extremely interested to see how this pans out. Unfortunately, Google have announced the pricing for Europe, and it's the same for Business and Education: €21/month for the cheapest model. At current exchange rates that's nearly £18.50/month.

Saying we can forget the current pricing is no different to saying we can forget Microsoft's current pricing. Yes, we like to dream, but that doesn't change reality. Personally, I hope it does get cheaper, but I don't think Google will drop it significantly. Indeed, recent moves indicate they are actually tightening up on the freebies.

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Originally Posted by AngryTechnician

You're right, if they did it for that sort of money it would be a great deal. I for one am extremely interested to see how this pans out. Unfortunately, Google have announced the pricing for Europe, and it's the same for Business and Education: €21/month for the cheapest model. At current exchange rates that's nearly £18.50/month.

tightening up on the freebies.

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You may be right and at the price you say I think it's too much to make th echanges happen..but the edu prize is such a big one maybe with gov help?

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Originally Posted by spannerman2

You may be right and at the price you say I think it's too much to make th echanges happen..but the edu prize is such a big one maybe with gov help?

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Or just good, old-fashioned competition - there's nothing stopping another company providing Chrome/whatever OS laptops for £10 each a month if they think that's what they can do them for.

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Originally Posted by spannerman2

the edu prize is such a big one maybe with gov help?

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Given the amount of money our current government has slashed from school IT, and school budgets in general, I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.

Just got a message from the Editor at IDG telling me off for quoting the article . . unusual!