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That was from an independent study, before the tories got semi elected. They now change their tune when in govt.Quote:
Originally Posted by mthomas08
We saved £60k per year by NOT buying MSOffice through EES - yes that is what we were quoted.Quote:
Originally Posted by mthomas08
OUCH!Quote:
Originally Posted by CyberNerd
Thats almost our budget right there a year, did you plan a massive upgrade/install?
With us here we purchased upgrade licenses as we brought new PCs/Laptops, now though we pay an annual fee to MS which allows us to upgrade all our PCS to any future MS product. Even that fee is no where near your 60k and we are paying for roughly 200 staff.
It's why the saved 100k didnt exist for us, we already had been paying over 10 years worth of MS licenses, some allowed us to 2000-2003 others allowed us 2003-2007 etc.
Yeah, you've missed the entire point. It isn't about replacing everything with open source software. The original government policy was to encourage the use of open standards. Eg. Using ODF instead of DOCX, using SOAP/REST instead of proprietory interfaces between systems etc...Quote:
Originally Posted by mthomas08
This would then have opened the market to using smaller companies, or open source solutions which can inter-operate easily with the others.
No-one says you should switch the entire infrastructure in your school to open source, and anyone doing so without giving you a TCO breakdown which includes retraining etc... is pulling a fast one. However, saying you won't use it stubbornly simply means you're not doing your job right IMO - as keeping an open mind about all possible solutions to the ongoing problems in any network is key to what we do. If LibreOffice could replace Microsoft Office and reduced the TCO for you, even though it would involve retraining then that should surely be approached as a solution. Simply saying 'Office 2010 is better' isn't saying why it is better. What can a student in a school do in Office 2010 that they can't do in Libre Office?
Did you do a TCO analysis of using Office over, say, 10 years and compare it to the cost of Libre Office or similar?Quote:
Originally Posted by mthomas08
Blimey, are you at a University or something as on EES you would need over 1500 staff to get to that figure, even with the Desktop Enterprise CAL. The only other way you could get to that is if you have laptops allocated to each individual student.Quote:
Originally Posted by CyberNerd
Quote:
Originally Posted by mthomas08
Quote:
Originally Posted by teejay
It's because the school ICT vision states that we should allow students 'anywhere, anytime' access to resources on a ubiquity of devices. This is an educational vision as opposed to some thing we (IT) wanted to do. I believe it has a sound educational basis. To fulfil this vision we need to be able to allow students to use X device (ipad,iphone,laptop, tablet etc) at home and do homework. To enable this we use Citrix. To give students an MSOffice license at home means the home machine must be licensed for office use. This is extortionately expensive to do, esp when considering Citrix and Terminal server licensing. OpenOffice and Google Apps is much cheaper and fulfils all of the curriculum requirements. notwithstanding the 'used in industry argument' the main issue we have is with Capita forcing export to Excel - this could be solved by a govt if they chose.
Become dependent on Microsoft.Quote:
Originally Posted by localzuk
How big is your school? 300 FT here is about 11k per year for ESS.Quote:
Originally Posted by CyberNerd
It doesn't cover office licenses for every students home device via terminal services.Quote:
Originally Posted by Theblacksheep
gotcha. ouch, quite a provision!Quote:
Originally Posted by CyberNerd
Ah, yes, good point! We use live@edu which has a web based basic version of office, if they need more we point them to the student version which they can buy themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by CyberNerd
Guess I am not doing my job then? Even though we currently have it installed on 1/3 of our system and never gets used? In fact the main reason why it is there are those who have it installed at home.Quote:
Originally Posted by localzuk
What I was saying is if the Gov is pushing for Open Source we will indeed be pushing back telling them Office 2010 is what we want and we will kick up as much fuss as they can and now we are an academy we are pulled away from KCC (if they decide as well if Open Source is the way).
If OpenOffice is set as the default for Excel files, and Excel isn't installed, shouldn't OpenOffice pick it up?Quote:
Originally Posted by CyberNerd
Or is it a literal case of it being forced? [By which I mean the software is actually looking for Excel. Doubtful, but it could happen...]
IIRC SIMS has to have Excel and Word installed on the machines to be able to generate the reports, it uses some API's or something from within Excel and Word. I beleive you can get away with the Excel and Word viewers for this, not 100% certain.Quote:
Originally Posted by X-13
No, we don't *want* Office 2010 - we want a word processor to teach what we need to teach. We want a spreadsheet to teach that. Specifying one package is ridiculous to say the least.Quote:
Originally Posted by mthomas08
People aren't using LibreOffice? Why? I know why, its because you added it as a token measure to allow people to actually be inter-operable and so that kids aren't forced to buy MS Office. If it was installed instead of Office and people were given the basic training that they have had with Office, then its use would be just like that which Office gets. The 2 suites have directly comparable tools and capabilities.
Your argument is basically 'we're used to X, we're sticking with X' from what I can tell.
And to my anonymous fan who left the neg rep with "Blimey - another subject you are never wrong on. Is there no end to your greatness!", I'll say 'of course there's no end to my greatness!' 8-) Or... I have experience in this, being a network manager, managing a budget, seeing what my schools need and what can fulfill the requirements. If I couldn't, I wouldn't be very good at my job now would I? Am I not allowed an opinion?
I just looked it up. Apparently, SIMs shells out to word/excel.Quote:
Originally Posted by teejay
From what I understand... It literally forces MS Office.
I've also heard of SIMs breaking if MS Office isn't installed in the default location.
This is how I read it... But, I'm not going to get into an argument with people over which office suite is better.Quote:
Originally Posted by localzuk
If people here are fully licenced for Office 2010, It works well and they're happy with it, I don't care.
Likewise, if people here don't have MS Office and are happy with using Libre Office, I don't care.
If they need help/advice, I'll help/advise the best I can. Without any "X is better" comments.
[EDIT: That sounds like I'm having a go... I'm not. I'm just saying I'll help anyone/everyone.]
Welcome to the Internet.Quote:
Originally Posted by localzuk
Where men are boys, women are men, children are FBI agents and no-one is allowed an opinion.