scholarpack Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 (edited) I understand the Bromcom standing has grown as well as some others. I'd love to see the updated figures for all. Maybe we do need that freedom of information request. Interested to see the impact of scholarpack on the market too, and importantly, where the business has come from.. In terms of numbers of schools, fairly small - in the teens, with schools coming from no MIS, as well as Serco and WCBS Pass. One school in the last 3 years has gone from SIMS to Serco to ScholarPack. In terms of interest we are generating plenty, especially at LEA level, which is our primary market, where we are presenting to 5 or 6 within the next month or so (tighter budgets etc - see Norfolk council strikes yesterday, didn't they just sign a £7m contact for MIS which I believe one of the protesters complained about on Radio 4?). Many LEAs are conscious of the Becta report which essentially stipulates they have to follow EU tendering requirements, so we expect a much more open market in the near future. Long, long overdue. But it's early days yet and we are in this for the long haul Edited February 15, 2011 by scholarpack
zag Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 Indeed.... Interesting times ahead. Spending 7 million on an MIS contract is absurd and just goes to show the waste involved with these types of procurements.
vikpaw Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 But it's early days yet and we are in this for the long haul Promising to hear. Good luck with the presentations.
dave.81 Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 We are currently re-assessing our MIS and iSams at the moment is our prefered one. Although this is just a rough view need to looking at it in practice and costing is always going to be a big issue.
vikpaw Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 We are currently re-assessing our MIS and iSams at the moment is our prefered one. Although this is just a rough view need to looking at it in practice and costing is always going to be a big issue. It is proving popular with independent schools. What do you use at the moment?
dave.81 Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 We are currently using PASS, first the finance and the admin just followed. After years of just blindly buying new modules and re-newing it's time to assess what is actually out there. Scholarpack is looking impressive too so will have to investigate that one further now.
matt40k Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 More like a FOI request of the DfE I'd say! Estimated costs, pfff... SIMS core isn't too bad, it's all the bolt-ons that make it expensive!!! One thing I like about SIMS is that it's UK developers, I know that sounds bad, but in times when the country making huge cuts, at least someone isn't outsourcing to other countries and is actually recruiting. Plus it makes me feel good that I could drive down to Bedford and poke the developer in the eye if they do a rubbish job.
number34 Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 Estimated costs, pfff... SIMS core isn't too bad, it's all the bolt-ons that make it expensive!!! Agreed! We've found that having SIMS at the core and using TASC PARS for registration and TASC INSIGHT for parent access to reports isat least 50% cheaper than Capita versions. And I still can't believe that Discover is included in the core!
vikpaw Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 .... Plus it makes me feel good that I could drive down to Bedford and poke the developer in the eye if they do a rubbish job. it's not that easy to find! TomTom with the postcode had me at the wrong end of town. Then by street, it gave me the wrong building. But in theory I like the plan. So if discover needs 8gb ram you're heading to Bedford ...
matt40k Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 So if discover needs 8gb ram you're heading to Bedford ... If it needs 8GB, but it's good, I won't poke them in the eyes, ok, maybe I will, then run off with a few machines (Lets hope they don't read this or I'll need to come up with a new plan)
Sivadam Posted February 16, 2011 Posted February 16, 2011 Performance is better on the Spring build of Discover than what we had initially on the FT. And they will be looking at it further - in particular for the Autumn 2011 build, I believe!
pcstru Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 One thing I like about SIMS is that it's UK developers, I know that sounds bad, but in times when the country making huge cuts, at least someone isn't outsourcing to other countries. As far as I know, CES have used and still do make quite extensive use of offshore development.
APC Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 As far as I know, CES have used and still do make quite extensive use of offshore development. At the moment capita are busy outsourcing everything! So much for british jobs!
PhilNeal Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 Well our part is certainly 99% UK based - almost 500 staff mostly based in Bedford, Chelmsford, Northants & Cirencester. We do employ a number of staff in India but this is because there aren't enough qualified people in the UK! 1
pcstru Posted March 1, 2011 Posted March 1, 2011 500 would be sales and support as well as development. Even so, 1% of 500 - that would be 5. Are you sure your figure isn't out by an order of magnitude (i.e. over the whole of CES the offshore body count is 50 or more).
matt40k Posted March 1, 2011 Posted March 1, 2011 5 would be a small team, far as I know, that's they way they work so that sounds about right.
vikpaw Posted March 1, 2011 Posted March 1, 2011 ...We do employ a number of staff in India but this is because there aren't enough qualified people in the UK! I hope the qualifications are kosher, i've come across some that aren't recently. Wonders of the internet age would you believe
pcstru Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 5 would be a small team, far as I know, that's they way they work so that sounds about right. The size of teams has very little to do with any offshore engagement. CES certainly used to make extensive use of 'development' resource from an Indian company - Mastek. Their claim to expertise in Education Information Systems can largely be traced to working with CES. I understand CES use a different company now but unless they have radically changed the mix since working with Mastek, 5 in total out of 500 sounds very wrong - by an order of magnitude. There's nothing wrong with using offshore resource. One of the key reasons companies do it is flexibility - the ability to scale up and down the numbers as needs change. That kind of dynamic flexibility is almost essential for a large software house - in a 'do it or die' way. There is an overhead to offshore working though that suggests that for a company the size of CES, engaging 5 people offshore would make them at best, a very expensive 5 people.
matt40k Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 Sure your not thinking of Bromcom? Most of comments I've seen in patches etc are refering to a person sitting in bedford. Still I guess we'll never really know until someone 3rd party has a look at the source code and does a bit of digging. Capita do a good job of protecting the devs from us moaning lot so it does it make it hard to actually find where they based.
PhilNeal Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 I was using "99%" to mean that the vast majority of our staff our based in the UK and hadn't reached for my calculator! 96% UK based is more accurate and yes off shore does mean that we can scale up and down easily.
pcstru Posted March 3, 2011 Posted March 3, 2011 Sure your not thinking of Bromcom? Most of comments I've seen in patches etc are refering to a person sitting in bedford. Still I guess we'll never really know until someone 3rd party has a look at the source code and does a bit of digging. Capita do a good job of protecting the devs from us moaning lot so it does it make it hard to actually find where they based. Yes I'm sure. Phil's correction to 96% still looks a little ... 'odd'. My information though is a couple of years old so it could be that CES have radically changed the way they offshore in the last couple of years. I'd be quite surprised if that were the case though, given some of the constraints CES have to work with.
matt40k Posted March 3, 2011 Posted March 3, 2011 Maybe your information was from when they were doing a big project. Guess we won't know unless you and Phil give us more info.
pcstru Posted March 4, 2011 Posted March 4, 2011 Maybe your information was from when they were doing a big project. Maybe. Maybe several big projects. Maybe not. Do you think there are any times over the last (say) 5 years when CES weren't undertaking a 'big' project of one sort or another? Guess we won't know unless you and Phil give us more info. When I next see them, and if I remember, I will ask a few folks who currently work there and see what they say about the current level of staff offshore. Might be interesting.
Max_Power Posted March 4, 2011 Posted March 4, 2011 We are a large independent school and we are currently evaluating our MIS against other products out on the market, namely Isams. We are now at a stage where we have complied a document of expectations / concerns / things we want to achieve etc etc and comparing our current MIS against ISAMS. We are also in contact with a number of schools to see how effective their use of ISAMS is and their feedback about it. I am however always cautious to speak with schools that the company themselves recommend as they can be slightly biased. We therefore are speaking to a mixture of schools, using ISAMS, are about to move to it, and those that have left it etc.
Sivadam Posted March 4, 2011 Posted March 4, 2011 (edited) I admit to being 'slightly' biased about SIMS! But anybody visiting us to see SIMS in action (we are a SIMS Partnership School) gets to see as much as they want to see - warts and all! If there are problems with the system they are not hidden by me for such visits! And you can be assured that any issues that I do make known to any visitor have already been lodged with Capita in one way or another! In the case of SIMS, the negatives are far, far, far, far outweighed by the positives. (not sure I included enough 'fars' there! ) I would have hoped that any other schools recommended for view by any MIS provider would be equally as honest! Edited March 4, 2011 by Sivadam
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