Advanced Learning Query

[sharonk]

Hi,

 

As a regular reader of these pages, I've never commented before, however today our Business Manager received a call from Link2ICT in Birmingham who have supported us with Facility CMIS for the last 12 years or so.

 

Apparently Advanced Learning have ended the rights for Link2ICT to re-sell any of their products to Birmingham schools, forcing schools to go direct on an individual basis to ask for a licence renewal. We were told that the company asked for over a 10% increase in licence costs from our provider in January before deciding to force all schools to buy direct in the last couple of weeks or so. This just doesn't seem like good business sense to me - so I wondered if the company is desperate for money.

 

Over the last few hours I have been doing some digging on-line and asking colleagues in other local schools. I have found out that the Advanced group were recently acquired by a venture capital company and according to figures posted on this forum they have lost around half of their MIS customers in the last five years with over 400 leaving in the last 12months or so. This causes great concern when they want us to sign up directly and we need their software to complete our next census return in May - that appears to be 'having us over a barrel' as one colleague said earlier.

Colleagues in other schools say that Progresso is still not working as it should, and that a number are seriously looking at moving to SIMS or Bromcom instead.

 

We are completely fed up with the lack of any development in Facility for several years now, and Progresso is a definite no from what we are hearing - I've also spoken to one school who purchased facility from the company directly when they became an academy who say that the support received from Advanced Learning is appalling in comparison to that we get from Link2ICT - does anyone have any comments on this? They also said that everyone they used to speak to at the company seems to have left in the last 12months or so.

 

I would love to get a better picture of what the company is like from schools who already buy direct - it isn't something we want to do, but it looks as if we will be forced by the end of next month. Any comments most welcome as we want to make an informed decision.

[NotSoFast]

We're happy Progresso users. Been using it for about 18 months now. Support improved hugely when Advanced took over from Serco - much more professional. It's not perfect, but it is MUCH cheaper than SIMS with a number of benefits, for example access from any device for anyone (it's web-based) and SSRS for reporting.

[bigdannyb79]

Too much staff rotation of late, at all levels its seems, which is impacting the service and the product significantly. They are relocating to a new nice head quarters in Birmingham which will help but it isn't going to be a quick fix as there little knowledge left in the company that we certainly seem to have access too. Pace of development has been shockingly bad for a couple of years now - we still have a half finished UI revamp which means you jump from old styles to new styles of menus and interfaces depending on where you are in the product. A simple reporting tool promised over a year ago still hasn't materialised but sits in the menu system and returns error messages. Its simply isn't close to what it could and should be - SSRS enables you to do some great things but you can plug SSRS in any database and do the same so the value is in spite of progresso.

 

Weren't at BETT this year either and Workbook: MIS Market Moves 2015 gives the detail behind their dramatic loses. But if your product stands still and your support goes south it aint rocket science to predict what happens to your customer base.

 

The product still misses the mark in so many areas but the original principle is still sound and if it ever delivers then it will be market leading but its no where near that and after being 'live' for several years the progress its made in that time makes you wonder if it ever will fulfil its potential. They lost 35% of customers over the last year, although that is Facility and Progresso - you have to ask some serious questions about long term sustainability should that trend continue. And from what I have said above I'm not sure what is going to dramatically change to turn it around in the next 12months. . .

[elsiegee40]

Can I remind people that stories are stories and this is a public forum. We do not wish anyone to be exposed to legal threat and may remove or edit posts as necessary.

[Banjo]

Over the last few years we have had schools move away from Facility and back to SIMS and this process is still ongoing. Several years ago the owners at the time made a statement where they stated that Facility would no longer be developed. This was later with drawn and policy was changed. Only the users of Facility can really judge for themselves what development has taken place in the product over the last 5 years outside of making the product compliant with DfE statutory reporting to justify any substantial price increases.

[NotSoFast]

We buy direct and are happy with Progresso. First-line support is pretty good in my experience. The product is very stable now but as was mentioned in another thread the UI is in a bit of a mess as half the screens have been upgraded and others have the old look and feel. We get a lot more our of it than we ever did Facility. Edited March 14, 2016 by NotSoFast

[Banjo]

Looks like a grab for the support money by the software provider that's cutting Link2ICT out of the loop. Short term gains, long term market share losses.

 

Unfortunately, Capita look to be moving in this direction with SIMS 8. Only offering a Capita hosted solution is a strategic business decision and not a technical argument that reduces the LA Support units role and 'encourages' schools to go to Capita Direct for their support. I don't like this approach, other LA's I've spoken to don't like it either. Maybe Capita have become overconfident that it can win the LA tenders that moving to SIMS 8 will trigger, whilst at the same time biting the hand that feeds it. This then has implications for the LA's Capita ONE team. Without SIMS in the vast majority of schools and it's tight integration via B2B, do you then take another look at the other EMS suppliers knocking at your door?

 

It's much easier to sell to an LA with 100+ schools than spend hours and days in staff/SLT/governors meetings after school trying to 'flog' your MIS school by school.

 

Some interesting times ahead!

[PhilNeal]

@Banjo we strongly believe in local support and our plans are definitely not to cut out the people that schools trust.

[Banjo]

@Banjo we strongly believe in local support and our plans are definitely not to cut out the people that schools trust.

 

Then why not offer the option for LA's to host SIMS 8? We look to be moving from a Local, LA or Capita environment, to just Capita hosted. This is a business decision not a technical argument. Other cloud based providers offer a variety of solutions?

[GREED]

Then why not offer the option for LA's to host SIMS 8? We look to be moving from a Local, LA or Capita environment, to just Capita hosted. This is a business decision not a technical argument. Other cloud based providers offer a variety of solutions?

I'm not up to speed on the latest with all the suppliers, but I am not so sure on that. Progresso is one central solution. I believe G2 is? Scholarpack? Arbor? It is all moving to SaaS. Is the problem here supporting the tech or supporting the use? Likely the latter, there is no reason local support has to go.

 

Edit:

 

Also informed that Bromcom have a centrally hosted solution (we all know I've been asked by them to add this!). Although, my point is that the above mentioned solutions are a single central solution I don't believe there is any other hosting option.

Edited March 16, 2016 by GREED

[Michael]

To be honest, I don't have a major problem who hosts whichever MIS. You'll have an SLA attached to it when you sign up for whoever, very much like Office 365 in that respect.

 

Now if you're to compare an LA so called datacentre, along with Microsoft's which hosts O365, it's laughable really. There is no comparison.

 

I think if Capita for example had their own datacentres, I'd have more confidence they'd be monitored around the clock unlike an LA hosted solution. Again, like Microsoft, upgrades are applied en masse, especially the likes of SIMS software upgrades or SQL Server and likewise Microsoft and Exchange Server.

 

Personally my experience of LA hosted solutions have been extremely average. Plus it just isn't financially viable to create/host your own datacentre - Capita and Microsoft in this example are both very large and very resourceful.

[Banjo]

Progresso used to allow LA clusters and was built with this in mind. I'm just not sure that any LA took them up on that offer :-)

[Banjo]

I'm not up to speed on the latest with all the suppliers, but I am not so sure on that. Progresso is one central solution. I believe G2 is? Scholarpack? Arbor? It is all moving to SaaS. Is the problem here supporting the tech or supporting the use? Likely the latter, there is no reason local support has to go.

 

Devon seem to do a good job. SIMS Terminal Server

[Barcrest]

Looks like a grab for the support money by the software provider that's cutting Link2ICT out of the loop. Short term gains, long term market share losses.

 

Unfortunately, Capita look to be moving in this direction with SIMS 8. Only offering a Capita hosted solution is a strategic business decision and not a technical argument that reduces the LA Support units role and 'encourages' schools to go to Capita Direct for their support. I don't like this approach, other LA's I've spoken to don't like it either. Maybe Capita have become overconfident that it can win the LA tenders that moving to SIMS 8 will trigger, whilst at the same time biting the hand that feeds it. This then has implications for the LA's Capita ONE team. Without SIMS in the vast majority of schools and it's tight integration via B2B, do you then take another look at the other EMS suppliers knocking at your door?

 

It's much easier to sell to an LA with 100+ schools than spend hours and days in staff/SLT/governors meetings after school trying to 'flog' your MIS school by school.

 

Some interesting times ahead!

 

To be fair all secondary schools should be Academies in the very near future with the budget today expecting to announce 1.5bn to move the remaining schools across. This pretty much takes the LA out of the MIS decision process surely. The only reason I don't like hosted is that you are adding in the reliability of the internet connection. We have seen this moving to office 365 for email, if the internet goes then we don't even have internal mail like we had with our own server. I would hate to see that happen with no access to Sims.

Edited March 16, 2016 by Barcrest

[GREED]

Traded services for support and training. Still very much going to be needed.

[Barcrest]

Traded services for support and training. Still very much going to be needed.

 

The only time I contact our MIS support team is to pester for the release of the latest sims release on solus 3. We actually get our support from outside our LA now anyway, they have pretty much closed down our LA support.

[NotSoFast]

I believe Progresso is hosted by Amazon.

[Banjo]

To be fair all secondary schools should be Academies in the very near future with the budget today expecting to announce 1.5bn to move the remaining schools across. This pretty much takes the LA out of the MIS decision process surely. The only reason I don't like hosted is that you are adding in the reliability of the internet connection. We have seen this moving to office 365 for email, if the internet goes then we don't even have internal mail like we had with our own server. I would hate to see that happen with no access to Sims.

 

I agree, last weeks budget has changed things around. It makes the timing of the general release of SIMS 8 all the more interesting. Release the at the end of 16 early 17 and Capita potentially miss out on the 17,000 or so schools having to re-licence SIMS 7 as they change to academies before moving on (and licensing) SIMS 8. Or sit back and take the risk that schools won't move suppliers to a cloud based solution when they convert, take the SIMS 7 licence fees and then again when SIMS 8 comes out in 2019/20. The agony of choice :-)

[Bromcom-PR]

I agree, last weeks budget has changed things around. It makes the timing of the general release of SIMS 8 all the more interesting. Release the at the end of 16 early 17 and Capita potentially miss out on the 17,000 or so schools having to re-licence SIMS 7 as they change to academies before moving on (and licensing) SIMS 8. Or sit back and take the risk that schools won't move suppliers to a cloud based solution when they convert, take the SIMS 7 licence fees and then again when SIMS 8 comes out in 2019/20. The agony of choice :-)

 

Hi Banjo,

 

Interesting scenarios. However at all times, one needs to overlay with key advice given in the DfE/Becta Report of 2010 which clearly singles out, re: move from legacy Windows -based application to "cloud":

 

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110130111510/http://localauthorities.becta.org.uk/upload-dir/downloads/becta_report_on_mis_2010.pdf

 

Page 4 - para 1.18

 

"Generational changes in the nature of the products, for example, the upgrade from a DOS-based product to a Windows- based product, or from a local area network (LAN) based product to a “cloud” based product, would if challenged be likely to be regarded as sufficiently material to require the change to be competitively procured by the contracting authority (Paragraphs 6.8 to 6.12). "


[bobsmith]

I'd always heard from the sales guys that SIMS 8 would be a new product, not an upgrade (i.e. chargeable)

[PhilNeal]

No sales guys should be saying anything!

[bobsmith]

This was some time ago Phil, so I can't provide details I'm afraid (like a few years at least)

[Banjo]

I'd always heard from the sales guys that SIMS 8 would be a new product, not an upgrade (i.e. chargeable)

 

That's the rumor that I've heard.

 

Lets do some 'fag packet' maths. Roughly LA 17,000 schools to convert. Capita has ~90% market share. 15,300 schools x lets say an average price of £5000 per schools to re-licence SIMS 7.

 

=£76,500,000

 

"That pays some for the bubbly at the shareholders meeting"

 

And the thing with Christmas is, it comes around again next year :-)

Edited March 22, 2016 by Banjo

[Bromcom-PR]

That's the rumor that I've heard.

 

Lets do some 'fag packet' maths. Roughly LA 17,000 schools to convert. Capita has ~90% market share. 15,300 schools x lets say an average price of £5000 per schools to re-licence SIMS 7.

 

=£76,500,000

 

"That pays some for the bubbly at the shareholders meeting"

 

And the thing with Christmas is, it comes around again next year :-)

 

 

According to DfE/Becta Report 2010 (see below link), if LAs are still in existence for legal compliance - LAs and schools/academies will need to hold a fair and transparent procurement process. "Upgrade" is a redline!

 

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110130111510/http://localauthorities.becta.org.uk/upload-dir/downloads/becta_report_on_mis_2010.pdf

 

Page 4 - para 1.18


Edited March 22, 2016 by Bromcom-PR
Corrected a broken URL

[GREED]

Link is broken Ali

 

I'd suggest a couple of things on this topic, seeing as we have moved away from the OP:

@PhilNeal will not comment on any truth in what has or had not been said, no point in trying to goad him into it! One suspects that whatever decision has been made is still a long way away yet - we are going to have a new government before the deadline so a lot can still change.

 

Without starting something which I know it will, the term upgrade will be very loose here, either to mean procurement is not going to be an issue, or almost certainly that it will fall below the threshold for requiring full procurement procedures. Further, why should this not be deemed a simple upgrade on the same licence (assuming it is) - there was no need to re-procure on the last SIMS upgrade, nor when the database was migrated from SQL x to SQL x R2 (probably!). If we are talking about upheaval, you might as well add extra tonnage if EVERY school has to fully reprocure if/when they become an academy - shall we move into how much wastage in public money that will entail? Surely far greater than any possible saving for x years. Money that could and should be going to the people it is designed for - students.