Government agency tells schools to shun Vista

[OverWorked]

link

[NetDiag]

Not surprised really!

I think M$ have shafted themselves up their own rectum this time with Vista. It's just way too ambitious for it's own good and let's face it it has many major disadvantages over it's minimal eye candy features which are not original because apple OS and Linux OS's had them a long time ago.

Take a look at youtube videos of Ubuntu running Beryl! Seems way more impressive than Vista's 3D capabilities and skinable too whereas Aero isnt!

They never come up with anything new, original or groundbreaking. To them it's all about breaking the competition and stealing ideas.

Vista could prove to be a costly mistake for M$.

[OverWorked]

I didn't think it was that bad. I'll probably use it at home in the next year.

It's just that Vista is way beyond our hardware and doesn't provide any features useful for a school as far as I can see - certainly not worth the upgrade cost.

[Disease]

I am sure Microsoft will lose sleep over it........not.

[Geoff]

I think this is a symptom of a larger problem. I think Vista as a software project is too complex and large for the closed source development model to cope with. Fair enough, Microsoft streamlined the feature set and managed to get it out the door. But this doesn't bode well for the future. For example, when is the successor to Vista going to appear? 2015?

[Disease]

I am sure Microsoft have the money and the Expertise to handle any closed source project, no matter how big.

[webman]

Oh dear, MS were a bit slow on the "generousity" front with this one

They've obviously struggled with Vista - dropped features and endless delays - I agree with Geoff.

[Geoff]

I am sure Microsoft have the money and the Expertise to handle any closed source project, no matter how big.

I agree with that sentiment. But that wasn't my point. My point is that it would take so long for Vista+1 to get out the door that it's irrelevant. As OS's using other methods (Opensource, web 2.0, etc) have moved on.

Secondly, Microsoft (as with any other public company) is at the mercy of it's shareholders. Pressure from them to continue to see bigger dividends year on year may force them to seek alternate stratergies.

For example, we've already seen this with Apple, diversifying into the personal music player space with iPod, basing it's OS on Open source BSD with Mac OS 10 and dumping it's proprietary hardware platform for standard off the shelf PC components.

[unixman]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/11012007/22...-contract.html

I wonder if this extension has been granted so that BECTA can say in a years time "Schools, Vista it is now OK to use". Gartner have said that users should stay away from Vista until 2008 at the earliest, so Becta can wait until next year.

[Lee_K_81]

From my understanding Becta havent said NEVER use it, just to hold off for 12 months. This is usual with any major release. Lets face it, M$ dont do anything minor with either good things or bad!

The article also states that Becta have renewed it's memorandum of understanding with M$, and Becta have been widely critisised for not supporting, or encouraging schools with deployment of open source software. Once the early adopters have discovered all the bugs, Becta will say everyone should upgrade. The when SP1 gets released they'll say hold off for a while then deploy... ad infinitum.....

Becta wont say hold off completely. They benefit from agreements with M$ as do schools with favorable pricing compared with private sector. Becta don't back open source..... whats x% of £0 anyone? Hands up if you know.

As sad as it seems, the majority of schools have to teach M$ products to kids because thats what they will use in the world of work, thats what they use at home and are familiar with. Until society as a whole changes it's stance on open source software M$ will continue to dominate.

Even Universities are having a major shift from *nix to M$, when i went (all of 3 years ago) it was 50:50, my little brother is at the same uni now and it's now about 80:20.

[bossman]

I have no doubt that the Microsoft marketing people will come up with some sort of revamp like offering it free to all with a valid xp license and then charging a minimal amount to upgrade to the next version of Vista. What do ya think Bill?

[CyberNerd]

I don't recall Becta ever saying anything like this about MS products,

Whilst I absolutely agree with Becta that there are no "must-have features" in Vista and that of course there will inherently be problems migrating to any new operating system I think the real reason behind this is actually BSF.

It hardly makes sense for schools to start spending money on vista/office 2007 now when BSF will have PfI companies deploying them anyway. From Bectas point of view its just spending money twice.

[PiqueABoo]

I think all they've really said in addition to the painfully obvious "wait a bit until it settles down" that they probably paid Oakleigh a few bob for and no one should need a Becta (as opposed to any IT editorial) to tell them, is that their final report on Vista won't be finished until this time next year, so please don't make it redundant by rushing out and installing it beforehand.

And in a year's time you'll likely get "Microsoft... Application Vendor... stability improvements during 2007...." zzzzz... zzzzz... zzzzz

[kingswood]

Schools may be told to shun Vista outwith any educational application that needs its specific technologies (I would say video editing or music etc), but business have lapped it up at 62.5% higher rates within one month of launch compared to Windows 2000!

The problem from one side is that Vista may not be compatible with some of your older educational software; but from the other end future software needs will no doubt require Vista in some way to get all the functionality from the applications. So whilst BECTA are just making a subjective assessment I'm not sure why. When MS release an OS it's take-up is inevitable. Rather like KS3 online tests or BSF ;-)

Of course we could argue with BECTA that Vista contains some new improved security features that would actually benefit school networks- advances in group policy etc. And that's without mentioning deployment tools and options, and slick integration with Longhorn Server.

In the end you have to make a whole school decision based on your current and projected needs. BECTA are right in that schools shouldn't just dive in- ever- to this sort of release. But it will come...

[PiqueABoo]

62.5% higher rates.. compared to Windows 2000!

Did you get that from an MS marketing statement? Consider:

"Business" bought 1000 copies of X in the first month
"Business" bought 27,123,456 copies of X in the second year
"Business" bought 1625 copies of Y in the first month.

An increase in a rate doesn't tell us anything much.

future software needs will no doubt require Vista

Maybe, but I've yet to find an app I want to run (lots and lots of those) that doesn't work on my W2K laptop.