[sims] Capita is trying to sell off non-core businesses (SIMS is for sale)

[paulkerton]

SIMS is one of their cash cows so very much doubt this will get sold.

ESS is very much being sold.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/capita-plc-capita-prepares-disposal-160200755.html?guccounter=1

[elsiegee40]

Thread merged with SIMS for sale thread

[XiJ]

They're a tiny, tiny miniscule part of the business though. ESS is SIMS, Reading Cloud, Unit-e and Agilit-e.

 

https://www.capitaeducationsoftware.co.uk/

They have 21,700 school customers just on SIMS, and 130 using Unit-e and Agilit-e. That's 166 times more schools than FE and HE organisations. Just to match the money they'd be making on schools, FE and HE would have to be spending hundreds upon thousands of pounds each. If those 21,700 customers spent £5k on average (and we know its much more per average) that'd be over £100m coming in from the schools.

FEs and HEs would have to spend £800k or more each with Capita ESS to be bringing in the same kind of cash as the schools would be.

 

Fantasy purchasing here:

If I'm buying Capita ESS, I'm buying the brand, the staff contracts and the customer base and then selling the FE and HE software and customers to generate some revenue back.

Then I'm working to wind down the .net software and rebuild the next generation of the software from the ground up for the fourth time I think it is? If I'm lucky I might retain my customer base of 21,000 but I've also got to prepare for the worst and expect to lose a chunk of it. There is no way I'm paying £500m though. That's £23k per current customer in the UK. That'd take me 4 years or more just to break even on the acquisition based on my rough numbers, let alone all the outgoings I'm going to be taking on.

 

Ok could *maybe* male a case of sims was still pretty much a monopoly and ruled the sector. But arbor, bromcom etc have 4 years head start on the cloud version.

[dhicks]

Then I'm working to wind down the .net software and rebuild the next generation of the software from the ground up

 

I'd go for running SIMS as a hosted service, with a web-based gateway to a bunch of RDP servers running SIMS instances. There'd be some work to do to get some functionality integrated with the gateway part of things, but no need to re-write the core functionality or the user interface.

[3s-gtech]

What, no Flash?

 

Flash is just a little too ‘supported’ and cross-platform for my vision.

[Edu-IT]

Flash is just a little too ‘supported’ and cross-platform for my vision.

Do chasing cursors exist in your vision or scrolling marquee text? That’s worth money.

[3s-gtech]

Any cutting-edge tech like that is welcome. Got to appeal to the core demographic, so Comic Sans as default UI font is a shoe-in.

 

It’s pretty criminal how a product, that had such a strong market share and overall value, has been run into the ground and stagnated. Yes, application development of such a complex, inter-linked beast is tough, but they could have transferred it to a true web model one piece at a time - a bit like when they were integrating modules. Would have needed on-site server during the transition, but if they’d started with Attendance Monitor it would have met most needs.

 

Instead, we’re left with a stable but aged and stagnant platform, awful cross-platform capability and no native off-site function beyond their ‘hosted’ option. And a piece of vapourware.

[Edu-IT]

When you put it like that it doesn’t seem worth £500m at all. Surely you could build and market something better for that?

[DrCheese]

I'd go for running SIMS as a hosted service, with a web-based gateway to a bunch of RDP servers running SIMS instances. There'd be some work to do to get some functionality integrated with the gateway part of things, but no need to re-write the core functionality or the user interface.

 

That's basically all their hosted version is, a bunch of RDP servers that run the client. It's a terrible mess & not worth the hassle for schools to move to.

[MatthewL]

Common theme with CAPITA and systems like this, they bought Fortek out for the CAD systems in emergency service controls rooms and have issues there too!

[crAss-teacher]

I thought SIMS had a new SAAS offering as well a Hosted SIMS one, I heard they had a small number of primary schools and a fair number of pilots , and were just figuring out how to roll it out to those 21,000 schools ?

Maybe I am misinformed or may be this thread is ill informed ?

If they do have such a product then that might make a material difference to a potential buyer. Knowing SIMS it will probably all be Microsoft stack which may not appeal to the likes of google. Surely they cant have been sat around on their laurels for the last ten years... Maybe rolling out a big SAAS project for such a complex product with such high market expectations isn't as easy as it seems... anyone here done it? maybe thats why other big players have failed and those with limited customer base and a greenfield appear to succeed.

 

Clearly Corporate Capita are only capable of Corporate vandalism, milking a good business of their own, that is their business model, and now need to Sell ESS to cover up failings elsewhere. Now they can concentrate on consulting on other peoples businesses.... Could it be worse? At least as a Government outsourcer Capita were sensitive to the influence of Government and DFE , would Google , Pearson or a venture/vulture capitalist? what will an open market do to vendor pricing ?

 

I am sure at a SIMS level they must be equally frustrated , on the whole I've always found their staff knowledgeable and dedicated to supporting the UK Education market place. maybe spare a thought for them in these uncertain times. As employees not customers they probably have even less influence. I expect that their contracts forbid them from defending themselves here.

 

Definitely a turning point for Capita, ESS and education software in the UK !

[localzuk]

SIMS 8 - the SaaS edition, is massively behind schedule and keeps slipping further behind. By their original plan, it should have been out for schools a couple of years ago. My guess? There's some level of fundamental flaw in the system that is holding it back.

[Edu-IT]

I think SIMS Primary exists but not sure in what form or how good it is. I know of one school in my area using it.

[synaesthesia]

Capita have grown mostly by swallowing up smaller companies already established in their fields. I worked for a branch of Capita ESS which was originally part of the local LEA and was massively successful to the point that their kit and/or expertise was seen in nearly every school throughout the county and thousands beyond; they had a great reputation which was well deserved. Then Capita swallowed them up, corporatisation hit them like a ton of bricks and before you know it the core values the team had were being shot down by profiteering and low moral standards just to keep the board happy. Both clients and staff left in droves (those that were not forced out).

This sentiment echoed through most similar branches of the company that had been acquired and it showed, it was a horrible company to work for and most of us ended up feeling like oysters waiting to be shucked. And now for schools at least, so many appear to be stuck with SIMS and the idea of change is a daunting one but hopefully that tide is turning quickly enough now that most schools know another school that's jumped ship and hasn't had problems. I'm looking forward to that day, perhaps with a little trepidation but it must be worth it.

[XiJ]

Sims primary aka sims 8 will never see the light of day. I do know of a school who had a demo and laughed it out of the building.

 

Capita just trying to milk one last sucker

[DrCheese]

Surely they cant have been sat around on their laurels for the last ten years...

 

oh... but they have

[Ditto]

Useful insight from an Edugeeker Bring more data: What Capita's proposed sale of SIMS means for the UK MIS market

[Primus]

I thought SIMS had a new SAAS offering as well a Hosted SIMS one, I heard they had a small number of primary schools and a fair number of pilots , and were just figuring out how to roll it out to those 21,000 schools ?

Maybe I am misinformed or may be this thread is ill informed ?

If they do have such a product then that might make a material difference to a potential buyer. Knowing SIMS it will probably all be Microsoft stack which may not appeal to the likes of google. Surely they cant have been sat around on their laurels for the last ten years... Maybe rolling out a big SAAS project for such a complex product with such high market expectations isn't as easy as it seems... anyone here done it? maybe thats why other big players have failed and those with limited customer base and a greenfield appear to succeed.

 

Clearly Corporate Capita are only capable of Corporate vandalism, milking a good business of their own, that is their business model, and now need to Sell ESS to cover up failings elsewhere. Now they can concentrate on consulting on other peoples businesses.... Could it be worse? At least as a Government outsourcer Capita were sensitive to the influence of Government and DFE , would Google , Pearson or a venture/vulture capitalist? what will an open market do to vendor pricing ?

 

I am sure at a SIMS level they must be equally frustrated , on the whole I've always found their staff knowledgeable and dedicated to supporting the UK Education market place. maybe spare a thought for them in these uncertain times. As employees not customers they probably have even less influence. I expect that their contracts forbid them from defending themselves here.

 

Definitely a turning point for Capita, ESS and education software in the UK !

 

This thread is not ill informed.

[Arthur]

on the whole I've always found their staff knowledgeable

Not all of them. I was told last week that it was impossible to install the SIMS client via the command-line. I wonder how Capita do it then? 🤔

[Olliekai]

I emailed James Leonard (Head of Google for Education UK) and told him to snap it up and give it a proper makeover..... They would not notice 500m.

 

If google did that they could get an advantage over MS in schools

[Olliekai]

What, no Flash?

 

No. Macromedia Shockwave.

[Olliekai]

I’d buy SIMs.

I’d rename all the non-core stuff expansion packs and stuff packs.

 

I’d also only pay £500 quid for it

[crAss-teacher]

This thread is not ill informed.

Not anymore. There seems to be a grudging acknowledgement that SIMS has a Live SAAS product, and this may be of material interest to a potential buyer or its future. Regardless of the "opinion" and educated guesses at its viability , the thread is now better informed, slightly more balanced , though none the less opinionated.

 

hope I have quoted this right ... struggling with the 1980's PHP bulletin board style

[localzuk]

Not anymore. There seems to be a grudging acknowledgement that SIMS has a Live SAAS product, and this may be of material interest to a potential buyer or its future. Regardless of the "opinion" and educated guesses at its viability , the thread is now better informed, slightly more balanced , though none the less opinionated.

 

hope I have quoted this right ... struggling with the 1980's PHP bulletin board style

At the moment? SIMS does not have a commercially available SaaS MIS product. There is a pre-release version that is, as I said, multiple years behind schedule, for the primary market. The secondary version isn't even that far along.

 

It isn't "live" in any sense compared to their competitors.

[Michael]

I can't really comment on SIMS Primary as I haven't seen it, but as others have commented, SIMS 7 does need a full re-write.

 

It's perfectly possible, but the logistics and man hours required to do so could be very costly. I suppose other considerations for a potential buyer are -

 

- Existing customer numbers - SIMS still has a strong customer base, but the numbers are dwindling overall year after year.

 

- The competition - there's plenty out there already with growing customer numbers. The landscape looks very different to 15 years ago.

 

- MATs - they change the dynamic of how schools work. All legacy MIS solutions are very much standalone and that doesn't really work for MATs.

 

- Procuring - clusters of schools or MATs like to procure a single solution that'll work for all. In the context of SIMS 8, there is no SIMS Secondary at the current time. As to what exactly the differences would be between SIMS Primary and SIMS Secondary, given SIMS 7 does both is unclear.

 

- It's not just about re-writing existing code. It's also about writing new modules altogether - good examples are MAT based dashboards, native cashless solutions and safeguarding modules. SIMS 7 doesn't have any of these functions but as above, to the competition they're nothing new either.

 

- Hosting such a service can be tricky, but with the likes of MS Azure, Google Cloud and Amazon, the structures are already built. It's all about finding that right balance.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Michael