EduGeek@Microsoft 24th Feb 2011

[elsiegee40]

You really, really want to talk about the new licensing scheme then!!

To put it in number terms there are around 17,000 primary schools in England and around 3200 secondaries... A ratio of 5.3:1.

That's a big market in small numbers of licenses and small budgets!

[daveyboy]

Count me in.....

[witch]

Speaking from a little school's point of view, please can Microsoft be encouraged to talk at our level (primary schools) as well as at the 'big boys' (secondaries). We may not be as exciting in terms of our ambitions and budgets, but we want to benefit too

We're talking sites with 100 or less PCs and 300 or less users, pupils and staff combined. (In my case 40PCs, 100 students and 35 staff)... quite often with only 1 (2 at most) servers on site.

Seconded for a slightly bigger primary - and thirded for an even slightly bigger school but still not a huge secondary

[Dos_Box]

In what way would you want Microsoft to engage primaries, out of interest?

[joe90bass]

Interested! Given our ever decreasing budget I'll be interested to see/learn more about the MS AV offering (inc email if available). Also virtualisation/app-v/hyper-v, etc

[AngryTechnician]

In what way would you want Microsoft to engage primaries, out of interest?

Basically, smaller scale solutions. We hear a lot about fully-blown clustered Hyper-V solutions when small primaries can't afford a SAN - but they could still benefit from virtualisation. We get pushed towards SCCM when SCE is a lot easier to set up for small networks. We hear about UAG for remote access when we might be able to get away with something as simple as Application Request Routing.

From my point of view, Microsoft spend a lot of time pushing their bigger products, or the more complicated configurations, that are more suited to larger schools and universities. Those solutions often provide the most flexibility, but at the cost of additional complexity that isn't practical with a small budget and one bod in the IT office. Sometimes simpler is better, and the simpler products and configs are out there if you ask around enough.


P.S. Having dealt with the three above examples myself, I'd be more than happy to chat with anyone at MS who would like to discuss how some of the 'case-study' solutions could be simplified for smaller schools.

[elsiegee40]

In what way would you want Microsoft to engage primaries, out of interest?

TBH the way they need to engage us is by understanding the scale of our operations.

That is small numbers of:
- pupils
- staff
- machines
- servers (1 or 2)
- technicians (Usually 1 part-time doing everything and often not fully MCSE trained)
with a small amount of money

We simply don't have the manpower to devote to spending time getting to grips with complex charging and licensing systems.

It really does feel like they focus on the secondaries and colleges where there are often two or three people working full time to support the campus.

It would be nice to know that they are not assuming that all of us came close to understanding licensing costs, charging, how on earth we go about setting up live@edu, etc under the previous system!

And finally a plea on behalf of independent schools: Independent schools pay VAT! (Don't assume all schools are VAT free... we're not!)

[gshaw]

How will we be finding out if we have places on this? Don't want to miss out if I forget to check the thread one day, will you be emailing through to those who have spaces allocated once it's all sorted out?

[srochford]

Me please.

[GrumbleDook]

I'll be there ... but you just know that I am going to point out that we can all the best kit in the world, unless it actually makes a difference in a school then is it worth it? I want to see how the Labs stuff is being used in schools, and perhaps some links into game based learning (because you know you will have to connect XBoxes into your schools soon, and for the pupils ... not you lot!)

[plexer]

Shouldn't thay be kinnect xboxes???

Ben

[PiqueABoo]

TBH the way they need to engage us is by understanding the scale of our operations.

Indeed. Most common strategy I see is that they buy everything with select, but they can end up running on that for at least 5, possibly 6 or even 7 years. Like everyone else, including MS staff at times I'm not an expert on their licensing, but I think the amortised cost might be half the price of MSA "School Desktop" etc. Yes, they're then stuck with what they bought at the start for the duration, but they also save the cost of upgrading to this year's Windows/Office in significant time+expertise=money terms.

So far so good, but I've now got a niggling concern that these schools may not be able, or feel they are able, to afford to jump onto the cloud bandwagon that I'm guessing will heat up quite a lot with Windows 8 and apparently will add something to existing subscriptions even if it isn't the full $10 or whatever. If Microsoft want to look a bit more convincingly Good[tm] then I'd like to see them throw some free Office365 A1 licences in for teachers, perhaps 10, which would make it usable for free in single-form entry Primary and other small educational organisations (I'm ignoring admin staff because I'm not sure I want their docs in the cloud).

More generally I'm not sure they really get schools and probably have a self-selecting view of them i.e the ones with the shiny tech are probably the ones who are most likely to go talk to them. And certainly not Primary, but look around - neither do a lot of Secondary folk. More cynically I'm not sure they care too much: higher education use gets them "mindshare" amongst more imminent future movers/shaker/tech-influencers, but will they really get much back from having younger kids use their stuff?

[apearce]

I would like to attend please.

[Jay_Jay]

Have just sent an email

[elsiegee40]

For those haven't seen the booking details yet: EduGeek.net - EduGeek@Microsoft Conferance Details. Reading, 24th Feb 2011