BSF Managed Services Costings Outragously Expensive

[Grommit]

I know the Managed Services consists of all the PC's and Printers at approx £100 per child..

But..

What about.

Vandalism: Will this be an additional cost if the "BSF Company's" Technicians have to repair damage to equiptment ?

CCTV and Access Control: Will this be included in the £100? as our Access Control and CCTV maintainance package is quite high as we do not have a bog standard IP camera set up but a "new" Verint dedicated System.

Whiteboards: Promethean are not RM so will there be additional costs to the school as RM don't fix Promethean Boards?

After Hours: Will there be additional costs for weekend calls and evening calls ?

Would a ticket have to be raised for every job and then each job assessed to see if is part of the SLA .. ( and if is not part of the SLA like additional CD installation, moving a printer, replacing a vandalised mouse) then would the technician not work until a signed purchase order had been raised ?

Would the School Management be able to instruct the technicians as the technicians really no longer work for the school and they only jobs they do are the ones raised through the helpdesk and instructions recieved from the Managed Service Company?


Our School now..

1200 Kids

ICT Staff: £55 000

Jobs handled

PC's, Servers, Printers, Vandalism, Projectors, Telephones, AV for lessons, AV Screens, OHP's, Hand Holding for OFSTED and other Lessons, Lesson Covering, SIMS (installation and bug fixing at workstation), Cashless Catering, Photocopiers, off site AV productions, Access Control, CCTV, Library Database, TV's, Plasma's content, COMPLUS Tanoy System, CCTV event capturing, VOIP, Video Confrencing, and legacy equipement (3 year old PC's and Servers) which are still working fine but the BSF said they would not support..

maintainance CCTV: £25 000

Total £75 000 for everything 18 hours a day 7 days a week

BSF Basic Cost: 9 - 5.... 5 days a week

Support Contract Basic cost £120 000 = £100 per child

this is a basic cost for only Servers, PC's (under 3 years ) and Printers

Additional

maintainance CCTV £25 000

Cashless Catering: ?

Telephones: ?

Photocopiers:?

Legacy Equiptment:?

AV and Media:?

After Hours: ?

Vandalism: ?

Alsrady the costs have doubled and we haven't even started ...

And the BSF pays for the first year and then the School has to pay out of its own budget for the next 4

[beeswax]

Grommit, can I point you in this direction?
might it not be a good idea to get merge these two posts?

[beeswax]

Had a meal out with some friends last week, and in conversation mentioned the name of the company/consortium which is going to be providing our managed services. This group already provides for her department, and she asked them for a quote for two new computers, and they came back with £5000. That's not a typo. Five thousand pounds.

[CyberNerd]

Had a meal out with some friends last week, and in conversation mentioned the name of the company/consortium which is going to be providing our managed services. This group already provides for her department, and she asked them for a quote for two new computers, and they came back with £5000. That's not a typo. Five thousand pounds.

This is the area that desision makers don't pay attention to, ultimately the schools will get stung for any extras they want. In schools its very difficult to determine what the requirements will be in the next 5years and being stuck to one inflexible supplier is such bad news. Innovation will be suppressed in BSF schools.

[GrumbleDook]

This is why the LEP is the most important group. It is up to them to tie the companies down to costs. One suggestion is that the companies still have to purchase through Catalyst or similar agreements so that schools know what the cost of the hardware is irregardless of what the company is.

[Grommit]

This is why the LEP is the most important group. It is up to them to tie the companies down to costs. One suggestion is that the companies still have to purchase through Catalyst or similar agreements so that schools know what the cost of the hardware is irregardless of what the company is.

I know for a fact that the company that the won the LEA tender to supply a price list for kit for schools in our LEA (RM) is more expensive than my supplier that gives automatically 3 years warranty on all equiptment..

When I raised this i was told RM has been chosen and thats that.. you have to buy from them for this project.

[GrumbleDook]

Write a news article about it, make sure that you have substantial info to back it up and pass it on to the local press, El Reg and the BBC ...

Force it to be investigated. Be careful though ... you are aware of the hassle they can give troublemakers so you might want to pass it onto someone else.

Also try and find out whether it is the LA forcing this or the supplier (or both) ... remember that it is not just money involved but politics too.

[CyberNerd]

don't the press already watch this site? If I was a technojournalist I would.

[Face-Man]

There are certainly going to be a lot of cheap IT equipent on ebay soon.. I've just heard that due to standaization our local authority will only be able to have one supplier of whiteboards so half the schools will be scraping the ones they have that are the "wrong" type. And as for printers ......

[psydii]

we're encouraging open book, and a commitment to keep prices competitive with market rate.

[Grommit]

we're encouraging open book, and a commitment to keep prices competitive with market rate.

How can you have an open book when you HAVE to buy from the selected supplier ..

[localzuk]

There are certainly going to be a lot of cheap IT equipent on ebay soon.. I've just heard that due to standaization our local authority will only be able to have one supplier of whiteboards so half the schools will be scraping the ones they have that are the "wrong" type. And as for printers ......

I was thinking this today - the market is going to be flooded with ex-school computers of decent-ish spec, projectors, smart boards, networking gear etc...

Now would be a good time to start a computer refurbishment company/liquidation firm...

[john]

There are certainly going to be a lot of cheap IT equipent on ebay soon.. I've just heard that due to standaization our local authority will only be able to have one supplier of whiteboards so half the schools will be scraping the ones they have that are the "wrong" type. And as for printers ......

I was thinking this today - the market is going to be flooded with ex-school computers of decent-ish spec, projectors, smart boards, networking gear etc...

Now would be a good time to start a computer refurbishment company/liquidation firm...

hey hey we all know that Smart are the rule of the IWB
Sorry it should be an open race

[psydii]

When Accenture took over Sainsbury's IT, they 'put beyond use' the almost new 3com kit that they replaced with 'bignamevendor'.

A friend of mine spent a summer with a big hammer decommissioning the kit he'd been installing only months before.

How long is the initial contract for? Projectors don't last for ever, but if they integrated legacy kit that was in good shape you could stretch your refresh towards the end of the funding period making the money go further.

On my open book comment: The key thing is the commitment to match market rates + agreed markup.

[CyberNerd]

How long is the initial contract for? Projectors don't last for ever, but if they integrated legacy kit that was in good shape you could stretch your refresh towards the end of the funding period making the money go further.

AFIK the inital contract is 5yr minimum and schools are requested by LA not to buy new kit - presumably their budgets are progressively cut in run up to BSF