Arbor snap up another large MAT (57 schools)

[paulkerton]

Agree, both are very strong and streets ahead of SIMS. We use both and I’d put Bromcom ahead of them at the moment as a system on the whole, but the benefits of having two good solutions, constantly striving to improve, can only be of benefit to us as consumers.

 

I worked within the MIS market before jumping back into schools and I'd agree with @deshills that Bromcom is ahead of the competition, specially secondary schools, particular within the configurability of assessment and behaviour and in our case specifically areas such as behaviour, exams and parent communications with My Child At School.

 

I put that down to the 30+ years (actually think its closer to 40!) that Bromcom have been in the education market. They've been doing cloud MIS for 10 years now too. That in no way makes me feel old! As a matter of interest @deshills which features of Bromcom do you think they're leading the market with right now?

Edited October 22, 2021 by paulkerton

[deshills]

I worked within the MIS market before jumping back into schools and I'd agree with @deshills that Bromcom is ahead of the competition, specially secondary schools, particular within the configurability of assessment and behaviour and in our case specifically areas such as behaviour, exams and parent communications with My Child At School.

 

I put that down to the 30+ years (actually think its closer to 40!) that Bromcom have been in the education market. They've been doing cloud MIS for 10 years now too. That in no way makes me feel old! As a matter of interest @deshills which features of Bromcom do you think they're leading the market with right now?

 

I’m not sure their longevity has anything to do with it, SIMS pre-dates the Internet and hasn’t moved with the times.

 

I don’t agree with this perception that Arbor is only good for Primary and Bromcom Secondary, they are both MIS systems and there is little difference between both phases in terms of their MIS requirements.

 

I think there are subtle difference between the two, when it comes to the systems core offering.

 

Where i think Bromcom has the edge is it has a very sophisticated behaviour system which works very well, and I would say is industry leading (interesting to know others views on that) and the flexibility of the assessment module is the clearest distinction between the two at the minute.

[paulkerton]

I’m not sure their longevity has anything to do with it, SIMS pre-dates the Internet and hasn’t moved with the times.

I think the comparison is a fair one. SIMS issues stem from a monopoly position, rather than their longevity.

 

I don’t agree with this perception that Arbor is only good for Primary and Bromcom Secondary

To be fair, I didn't say that, though I know others have inferred it in the past. Arbor is very good and having strong competition between the two of them, and with SIMS as the monopoly position incumbent having both of them compete with it also, can only be a healthy thing!

[deshills]

I’m not sure their longevity has anything to do with it, SIMS pre-dates the Internet and hasn’t moved with the times.

 

I don’t agree with this perception that Arbor is only good for Primary and Bromcom Secondary, they are both MIS systems and there is little difference between both phases in terms of their MIS requirements.

 

I think there are subtle difference between the two, when it comes to the systems core offering.

 

Where i think Bromcom has the edge is it has a very sophisticated behaviour system which works very well, and I would say is industry leading (interesting to know others views on that) and the flexibility of the assessment module is the clearest distinction between the two at the minute.

 

Sorry my point about the “primary is Arbor and secondary is Bromcom” is more of a general observation of what I hear, as opposed to you saying it directly. Your comment was “specifically secondary” which triggered my comment. I actually think bromcom is really strong in Primary as well and has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years on primary tracking and assessment.

Completely agree on your last point, I’d very much like to see SIMS dominance diminish further and a more healthy and competitive spread among the field. Will be interesting to see how the new players in the market perform, although I fear it might be too crowded at the moment for new entrants

[7777newgeek]

If they do, I hope it doesn't mean that they put their feet up and think "job done" - let's just collect the £££s. As seems to be the case with one of the other "big boys".

 

I don't think they can afford to, from what I understand Arbor are still running at a huge loss and Scholarpack is the part of the business that makes the profit.

[paulkerton]

I don't think they can afford to, from what I understand Arbor are still running at a huge loss and Scholarpack is the part of the business that makes the profit.

Yes, but don't forget both are part of the Key. Also accessible accounts are for previous years, which aren't taking account of any customer acquisitions in the mean time. Arbor's financial position is pretty healthy.

[Oaktech]

We're a bromcom house and whilst it is orders of magnitude better than integris and sims that we've had before it still has it's glitches - mainly from the finance point of view. The school is used to using SCOPay finance software and compared to it Bromcom is very very clunky for the finance staff to use, particularly debtor reporting which is important as we have both a paid-for preschool and a paid for wrap-around care setting.

 

IRIS are going HARD with their marketing, we've had highlighter pens in posh boxes, seminar invites, cold calls, emails...

[nicholab]

I find it amazing that a school I joined removed Bromcom and went back to sims. Think being self hosted did not help the situation so missing the benefit of cloud hosting. To me a cloud MIS is a must it them mean that you can use a web device to access it.

[DrBeaker]

I find it amazing that a school I joined removed Bromcom and went back to sims. Think being self hosted did not help the situation so missing the benefit of cloud hosting. To me a cloud MIS is a must it them mean that you can use a web device to access it.

 

SIMS is definitely showing it's age with the lack of cloud option now.

[HereIGoAgain2601]

My experience of the IRIS and the onboarding process (last few weeks) has been very poor, not well established in the slightest - I would say very poor understanding of maintained / academy schools and the systems they need to link with. Linking with 3rd parties has been far too complicated and still not convinced it will work correctly on the go live date for September. We are getting there in the end but it has been too much pushing of “have you got a solution for this”, “how will this actually work”.

 

Things that we have taken for granted in SIMS just don’t exist in IRIS.

 

The sales pitch was very strong and the price was the cheapest I believe but have to say I am not impressed.

 

Even technical support during onboarding has been poor - no clear guidance on how to get 0365 SSO working. Seems like a very small team at the moment and all the help documentation and info is related to ISAMS and not been updated to reflect the new offering of EDGEN.

 

Would strongly recommend avoiding this platform for now.

 

That being said I’m glad that the move to the cloud is finally underway as SIMS being on premise was holding things back. This is the only positive i can find.

[PotNoodleTech]

IRIS are going HARD with their marketing, we've had highlighter pens in posh boxes, seminar invites, cold calls, emails...

 

I guess selling a pair of ipads and an ipod for £8k wasn't cutting the mustard any more so they had to move on to something even more cash cow-y, yes the fabled MIS.

[3s-gtech]

Haha yeah IRIS Connect - had forgotten about that having used it last year on loan. Second worst product in my experience in all my time in education - and I include some real duffers in that. Clunky, complex, seemingly a box of random bits that sort-of interact.

 

The MIS market needs some ground-up, user focused products built around standards and robust testing.

Edited July 18, 2022 by 3s-gtech

[Zammo]

I guess selling a pair of ipads and an ipod for £8k wasn't cutting the mustard any more so they had to move on to something even more cash cow-y, yes the fabled MIS.

 

Haha yeah IRIS Connect - had forgotten about that having used it last year on loan. Second worst product in my experience in all my time in education - and I include some real duffers in that. Clunky, complex, seemingly a box of random bits that sort-of interact.

 

The MIS market needs some ground-up, user focused products built around standards and robust testing.

 

Iris Connect and IRIS are completely separate companies

[3s-gtech]

Well, that’s embarrassing. And not obvious enough!

[supportman]

Well if you buy cheap, don't expect amazing results.

 

Both Arbor and Bromcom are fantastic cloud MIS's built from the ground up. I'd also include the new iSams product in there.

 

I don't know of any other MIS's that re as good as those, anything else is a big gamble I would say.

[365Steve]

Wow, that's a serious loss for Advanced. It's hard to see Cloud School (formerly Progresso) surviving this. I also hope AET were thorough with procurement process!

 

Kudos to you for calling it!

[HarryMonkey]

Bear in mind Arbour and ScholarPack are owned by the same parent company, so it's unlikely they will eat into each other.

 

They are owned by The Key Group who are in the process of buying Integris from RM so they will have Arbor, Scholarpack and Integris all under the same umbrella.

[andy_b]

IRIS sending the spam out even though we don't have / never had progresso:

 

"I understand your progresso agreement is coming to an end very soon which will leave you in a vulnerable situation with regards to a working MIS system. IRIS is helping schools make an urgent transition from Progresso over to IRIS Edgen MIS with a guarantee of onboarding in time. Would it be possible for us to organise a brief call to discuss further and arrange a demonstration of our MIS?"

[mthomas08]

January 2022 apparently.

 

SIMs 8 reminds me of my Steam wishlist, absolutely full of Early Access games that never seem to be released. Almost 100 games and quite a few of them are 3-5 years old... yet Early Access.

 

Still, on a positive note I think Arbor and Bromcom etc growing is good for the MIS market. It kicks them in to gear.

[Ditto]

Kudos to you for calling it!

And this weeks winning lottery numbers are.....

[Ditto]

IRIS sending the spam out even though we don't have / never had progresso:

 

"I understand your progresso agreement is coming to an end very soon which will leave you in a vulnerable situation with regards to a working MIS system. IRIS is helping schools make an urgent transition from Progresso over to IRIS Edgen MIS with a guarantee of onboarding in time. Would it be possible for us to organise a brief call to discuss further and arrange a demonstration of our MIS?"

Jeepers, that aren't hanging about! Talk about 'dead man's shoes'!

[365Steve]

They are owned by The Key Group who are in the process of buying Integris from RM so they will have Arbor, Scholarpack and Integris all under the same umbrella.

 

This was a very clever move by The Key. Arbor's lack of a finance package puts off some schools, but RM Finance will be relaunched as Arbor finance in the summer making them an 'all-in-one' MIS, much like BromCom.