Microsoft to move out of the education market?

[gshaw]

Why should they? They think they can make more money out of schools, they do it. Govt. cave in.

 

I have next to no money - I'd like a new car - should Honda keep their prices down for me?

 

That said, if this leads to a rise of vendor independent ICT teaching and learning, I think it will be a very good thing.

 

It'll just be a different vendor, most likely the Government's new best buddies at Google given the tax story recently

[kevin_lane]

@gshaw lol your most probably right

[kevin_lane]

I dunno I just think they are not thinking about the bigger picture. Or maybe they are I don't know and I don't know the figures but I would expect alot of school are going to be rethinking about their future about weather to keep windows or not I just think they are pushing schools into a corner and they are and they know they are just think it's unfair.

[mavhc]

SMART have a solution for that: https://www.smartamp.com/about

 

How much, approx?

[mavhc]

There used to be stacks on there about linux, how to create samba shares, integration, domain controllers. It all got lost a few years ago and the admins couldn't/wouldn't restore it following a crash

 

Any idea what year? https://web.archive.org/web/20100726172413/http://www.edugeek.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

 

Of course do we want to integrate with Windows, or just do things the Linux way? Interesting to consider if Google Apps has a linux directory sync tool for example. I find it quite silly that between 2 linux computers there's the use of a Windows technology like CIFS

[DJ-1701]

What do they expect schools to do if they havent got the funds, or the expertise to move to an whole infrastructure to more affordable route for their licence requirements.

 

surely they have to take this into consideration. I mean primary schools have like next to no money. And relying on bigger schools to help them.

 

Very unfair ms

 

Why should they? They think they can make more money out of schools, they do it. Govt. cave in.

 

I have next to no money - I'd like a new car - should Honda keep their prices down for me?

 

That said, if this leads to a rise of vendor independent ICT teaching and learning, I think it will be a very good thing.

 

I dunno I just think they are not thinking about the bigger picture. Or maybe they are I don't know and I don't know the figures but I would expect alot of school are going to be rethinking about their future about weather to keep windows or not I just think they are pushing schools into a corner and they are and they know they are just think it's unfair.

 

At the end of the day, a lot of companies are mostly thinking of getting people into subscriptions and getting as much profit in as possible, in short...

 

Hopefully a company such as Microsoft will see the profit in keeping things cheep for educational establishments. Only time will tell.

[Jamo]

This surely is a time to look at Libre Office - for the office component at least? It's hard to justify Office at the normal prices!! Especially when you need MS Access as well, Pro Plus is crazy money.

[Mr_Jiminy]

Best not put Datacentre on anything in a hurry... Scoff!

[twin--turbo]

Linux Management..

 

Webmin

 

Been around for ever.

 

 

TT

[psydii]

The cloud is very cheap if you are used to paying commercial rates.

 

A school doing a lot on prem (sql, exchange, enterprise cals, Lync, share point, office + work at home, Remote Desktop, software assurance etc) might be billed 14k per annum. A business, 300k per annum. Yet that same business on the cloud would have annual bill less than 35k.

 

 

The commercial cloud pricing is much closer to what we in education are used to spending. It is likely the govt had poor advice when negotiating the deal.

 

Govt also have a Cloud first policy on any contacts, and that is another driver for the termination of reasonably priced on-prem offers.

 

I can't help but feel that this is a long term strategy to drive education away from technology. I suspect the current thinking is that the use of technology in education was a folly, and thus an expense to be cut.

[Andrew_C]

Probably based on no evidence at all. Again, personally, I think that they may not be all that far from the truth.

[CyberNerd]

 

I can't help but feel that this is a long term strategy to drive education away from technology. I suspect the current thinking is that the use of technology in education was a folly, and thus an expense to be cut.

 

I think the Government have finally worked out the folly is Microsoft. Remember George Osborne campaigning for Open Source Government. They even released a spec then they were in government. Then they worked out it was about open standards, not open source and the cabinet office duly moved to Google apps (open API's)

 

If you paid attention at BETT, Nicky Morgan referred to these open standards in relation to data transfer. (just a message to Capita?)

 

I'm really hoping this is just the start of it. We've lived through a quite ridiculous age of student 'learning' Microsoft systems to get jobs when the rest of the world will innovate quite happily without it.

[CyberNerd]

There used to be stacks on there about linux, how to create samba shares, integration, domain controllers. It all got lost a few years ago and the admins couldn't/wouldn't restore it following a crash

 

Any idea what year? https://web.archive.org/web/20100726172413/http://www.edugeek.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

 

Of course do we want to integrate with Windows, or just do things the Linux way? Interesting to consider if Google Apps has a linux directory sync tool for example. I find it quite silly that between 2 linux computers there's the use of a Windows technology like CIFS

 

not sure. sorry @ZeroHour will know for sure.

 

WRT CIFS; its not a windows tools at all. SMB was made in the 1990's by IBM. Microsoft "extended" it to the Common Internet File System (CIFS) which is is a completely meaningless name: it's not an internet filesystem as they had hoped. A few years later MS got the Samba team in to tell them how it worked because they needed help with a newer windows (I don't have a reference for this, mail andrew tridell)

There are other technologies: windows isn't the be all and end all - There is hope (and most of it is open and documented)

 

 

How much, approx?

 

 

Not sure. Last time we were quoted it was mega expensive and we moved towards realtimeboard.

When I spoke to SMART at BETT they said they'd revised their pricing structureand it's now in-line with number of teachers. Of course stieljes couldn't get thir s*t together enough to give me a price.

Edited January 29, 2016 by CyberNerd

[Jamo]

The cloud is very cheap if you are used to paying commercial rates.

 

A school doing a lot on prem (sql, exchange, enterprise cals, Lync, share point, office + work at home, Remote Desktop, software assurance etc) might be billed 14k per annum. A business, 300k per annum. Yet that same business on the cloud would have annual bill less than 35k.

 

 

The commercial cloud pricing is much closer to what we in education are used to spending. It is likely the govt had poor advice when negotiating the deal.

 

Govt also have a Cloud first policy on any contacts, and that is another driver for the termination of reasonably priced on-prem offers.

 

I can't help but feel that this is a long term strategy to drive education away from technology. I suspect the current thinking is that the use of technology in education was a folly, and thus an expense to be cut.

 

 

I'm not so convinced about the cost of cloud. The cost comparisons I've seen equate to around a pretty standard 3 to 5 year product replacement schedule, the difference being with perpetual if you are really need to hold off a year for replacement you can where as with cloud you are tied in as you have no product to fall back on.

[kevin_lane]

All I see is alot of questions and no answers from government like some one said maybe they had bad advice it's well and good having open systems but if it can't do what you need you have to 1 rely on someone coding it or 2 find somthing else which could be costly

[ozydave]

Online exams like Pearson won't make exam software for Linux. They make a hash of it on Windows for starters

[Gibson335]

Confused now. Our supplier are saying that there will simply be a new style agreement, still a subscription, with the only difference it will be 20-25% more expensive.

[Hawes29]

The agreement between Microsoft and the DFE only runs until 1st July 2018, what happens after that God knows.

[Mr_Jiminy]

Info also here: Microsoft and the Department for Education agree new Education Cloud Transition Agreement for UK schools - Microsoft UK Schools blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

[kevin_lane]

“Technology is an integral part of school life and this new agreement will help schools around the country save money and improve outcomes for all.

 

“We want schools to be able to focus their resources on what matters most – teaching – and this agreement will help them do precisely that.”

 

I don't agree with this statement, not sure if other people do or not but I don't see how get the fact that by making schools go cloud it's a better thing and I'm not being funny but yes it might make it easier for pupils to access resources and thats all it is just because office 365 is in the cloud doesn't mean the a number of pupils are going to get a better result or understand a peice of homework because it's in the cloud I have got this wrong I don't know. I have been in education for over 10 years and I think this is a bad mistake.

[gshaw]

It's one thing going cloud with O365 (which we've done and embraced what MS give us) but quite another if they're going to hike up everything else so we end up with Azure / O355 or nothing.

 

Reading the blog I do wonder what's going to happen on our EES renewal in July as we have SQL, Windows Datacenter etc. that stand us no benefit to move to cloud, in fact an Azure VM would be way more expensive.

 

If MS force us to drop their infrastructure more likely than not Google will be the migration path instead. Makes you wonder the logic behind this, is it just money or are MS shooting themselves in the foot by trying to force our hand into subscription services where their competitors may end up being a better option?

Edited January 31, 2016 by gshaw

[CyberNerd]

If MS force us to drop their infrastructure more likely than not Google will be the migration path instead. Makes you wonder the logic behind this, is it just money or are MS shooting themselves in the foot by trying to force our hand into subscription services where their competitors may end up being a better option?

 

MS know that the future of windows isnt the desktop. It's dead in the water with the likes of android/ios/Chromebooks taking far more sales than windows. The monopoly is broken and they had to give it away (win10) to achieve any sort of 'success'. Their problem is that so is their mobile platform (2% sales??) has been massive flop. The ONLY way MS can compete in the long term is by moving to the cloud in competition with Amazon and Google. Potentially they can make massive gains here because they can just move their windows server infrastructure to the cloud for company's to use. I can see this is a very good strategy for them. There is still a lot of things GAFE won't do and I think it is here that ms will hope to win. The problem at the moment is that GAFE is currently much stronger than o365 and ms are going to need to up their game. Perhaps that is the sign that they finally will?

[gshaw]

Agree with many of the above, although this change seems a cynical way of protecting revenues via forcing people onto Azure whether it's the best place for (all) services or not. If our EES pricing shoots up in June (I'm in FE) it doesn't suggest MS can be trusted longer term not to ramp it up again. Google will be enjoying this news I imagine...

[CyberNerd]

Agree with many of the above, although this change seems a cynical way of protecting revenues via forcing people onto Azure whether it's the best place for (all) services or not. If our EES pricing shoots up in June (I'm in FE) it doesn't suggest MS can be trusted longer term not to ramp it up again. Google will be enjoying this news I imagine...

 

See my earlier comment about how many times our school has been shafted by ms. Trust isnt their business model.

[Arthur]

The problem at the moment is that GAFE is currently much stronger than o365 and ms are going to need to up their game.

MS aren't doing too badly...

 

These charts show just how popular Microsoft still is with big businesses

 

According to the research, Microsoft is the winner when it comes to really big business. The top category — a company with over 100,000 employees or revenues of over $10 billion (£7 billion) — sees Microsoft with an 85% share.

 

The second top category — a company with over 5,000 employees or revenues between $1 billion (£650 million) and $9 billion (£6.3 billion) — has Microsoft with an 80% share.

 

Google's popularity grew as the companies became smaller, but Microsoft was the clear winner with companies that bought tens of thousands of subscriptions to software services.