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Academies, 'new' SIMS licenses and the EU concept of 'Exhaustion rights'

localzuk

By localzuk
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GrumbleDook

GrumbleDook

Posted
Posted
You mean like giving some money to the BBC to create a heap of resources, ending up with a number of big players shouting about being anti-competitive, resulting in Curriculum-Online / eLCs and the resources have *still* disappeared from BBC?
localzuk

localzuk

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
You mean like giving some money to the BBC to create a heap of resources, ending up with a number of big players shouting about being anti-competitive, resulting in Curriculum-Online / eLCs and the resources have *still* disappeared from BBC?

 

The latter would be working with smaller companies, giving money to the BBC would be 'cosying up the big guys'! I have to agree with EdWhittaker a bit here, Becta did have a habit of favouring larger companies over smaller ones. Just look at the whole VLE debacle.

 

Edit: Maybe I should reword it a bit, Becta had a habit of favouring the 'rat pack' ie. companies that have been in the sector for a while, whilst ignoring the little guy who only started a couple of years ago, or has a non-standard business model. Biggest example of that would be Moodle. It is the favoured solution by Secondary Schools and third favourite of Primary Schools, yet it didn't get a look in because their framework for getting on their list excluded that possibility from the off, as they were looking for single company suppliers with an end to end solution etc...

Edited by localzuk
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EdWhittaker

EdWhittaker

Posted
Posted
Facinating views about Becta - can't say I noticed them favouing anybody!

That's not what I said. What I was trying to say is that Becta only listened to and consulted the usual suspects, instead of looking below the radar and getting out seeking and encouraging new and innovative products. That is not to say that they favoured a particular supplier, more that they ignored plenty of others.

Whatever, I'm keeping my fingers X'd for Anjelica's school to go for a minority provider; what the MIS market needs is a bit of healthy competition!

GrumbleDook

GrumbleDook

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I thought Becta gave money (grant) to the moodle community to develop the product via the backdoor?

 

Are you referring to the funding of the Open Source Schools group? The group was there to support the agenda of interoperability, to raise awareness of the opportunities for using Open Source Software within Education, but was not tied in with the development of any specific tools to link MIS into VLEs. For more details on the group please visit Open Source Schools

matt40k

matt40k

Posted
Posted
Yer, already pointed it out to @PhilNeal about it, he's already seen, he point out the costs were a bit excessive, which to be fair, they are, I would have said about half that for a high school, and I doubt all 400 schools have choosen SIMS and where a large secondary. Still I don't think Capita have spent that much money on SIMS .net, FMS without a doubt, and it's still got a way to go to get FMS up-to-date, but the point is SIMS isn't FMS and FMS isn't SIMS. Doubt the support costs will go up either.
Anjelica

Anjelica

Posted
Posted
Whatever, I'm keeping my fingers X'd for Anjelica's school to go for a minority provider; what the MIS market needs is a bit of healthy competition!

 

Looks like you get your wish Ed. Today we have moved forward and are officially working towards migrating to iSAMS. Yes, I know they are the leading supplier to the Independant sector but we aren't their first State school. It's going to be a busy term - watch this space.

jasn

jasn

Posted
Posted
I didn't realise Isams did data returns to govt., is this the case or does your school not need to do these?
Anjelica

Anjelica

Posted
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No, we still have to do returns (unfortunately!!). iSAMS are aware of the problem and have worked through it with their other state school.
synaesthesia

synaesthesia

Posted
Posted

I'm *personally* interested to see just how close those competitors can actually get. Having worked for them (but, I shall hasten to add, nothing to do with SIMS) I am probably one of the most Anti-Capita people around; but I've seen LOTS of competitive products, many of them are sniffing at C's heels but none of them are even close to doing it with the same ease and fluidity as Sims. The only gripe, which is definitely a shared gripe, is FMS for Windows 3.1. If that was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, I really can't see how anyone can compare? Plus some of the people behind SIMS are some genuinely genius people. Sometimes it's just a shame to tarnish their name because of the company they were bought by.

However, there's plenty of x y z vs SIMS threads already and people will all happily make up their own minds.

Does it make it fair that schools are being charged £sillymoney for transfer rights from state to academy? Forget schools for a moment and think business.

Joe Bloggs Computing Company is in business for 30 years. They have various licenses from Microsoft such as volume licensing and technical subscriptions, Sage for their finance products, Canon for their printing costs. They have bills coming in from HMRC, British Gas Commercial Supplies, Anglian Water and Local Joes Pizza Co.

Joe Bloggs Computer Company goes out of business in January 2011. Their administrators manage to sell the company to David Jones Computer Recycling Ltd who start trading at that address in February 2011. They reappoint the same staff, the same MD.

What happens with all the licences and bills there?

I genuinely don't know, I'm not a businessman. But I would happily put money on them having to fork out for new licenses, pay for new commercial contracts for their bills, register their own rates with HMRC etc. For one, you wouldn't want the same name as a company that went bust, but that's not the point. It's a different company outright.

Why should it be different for the schools?

 

I'm NOT defending Capita's tack here - I just feel the need to question people's opposition.

EdWhittaker

EdWhittaker

Posted
Posted

Must be the first time I've seen the words 'ease', 'fluidity' and 'SIMS' in same sentence!

Take your point about the transfer of licence fees, however there are a few differences; schools are not businesses (though some think they are!!) and the licence fees are being paid out of public money - yours and mine. It really matters not one jot to Capita (or RM or Serco, to be fair) that a name has changed on a contract; they are still providing the same service to the same people in the same school. One reason why Capita feels able to charge so much is a) their domination of the market and b) the perceived difficulty in swapping from one MIS to another.

Also take your point about other solutions not being perfect, but there is a bit of a chicken and egg situations here; if no-takes these alternatives on initially, they are not likely to have the funds nor the resources to improve easily. Early adopters always pay a price, but if wasn't for those brave souls taking a punt we'd still be paying hundreds of pounds for a mobile phone and thousands for a PC.

matt40k

matt40k

Posted
Posted
Capita are claiming the other MIS would complain, and that getting SIMS Academy-ready has costs £££. Personally it doesn't add up. FMS however is a different matter, still think they should just buy someone out.
GrumbleDook

GrumbleDook

Posted
Posted
Capita are claiming the other MIS would complain, and that getting SIMS Academy-ready has costs £££. Personally it doesn't add up. FMS however is a different matter, still think they should just buy someone out.

 

It is true that should Capita offer cut price offerings and free / cheap transfers of licences then they could very easily be accused of abusing a dominant position in the market. As for buying people out ... if you look at the other MIS providers out there with enough legal cahoonas to take this on ... the school MIS market is just a small bit of what they do ... and to buy them out would not be feasible.

Sivadam

Sivadam

Posted
Posted (edited)
Looks like you get your wish Ed. Today we have moved forward and are officially working towards migrating to iSAMS. Yes, I know they are the leading supplier to the Independant sector but we aren't their first State school. It's going to be a busy term - watch this space.

Good Luck with the new venture Angelica!

We'll miss you on SupportNet when you move over!

 

 

....Plus some of the people behind SIMS are some genuinely genius people.....

That is a statement that I could not agree more with. As an Nova user in a pre-SIMS life, I appreciate how much more advanced Nova was to SIMS, prior to Capita buying it out. Clive Stott was (still is?) one of those geniuses.

Edited by Sivadam
vikpaw

vikpaw

Posted
Posted

@Anjelica - good luck, and keep us posted on how the returns process works with isams. Maybe you can increase the count of [isams] tagged threads :)

 

I'm all for competition in the market, but in this case, i think i'd rather Capita allowed the licence to move for free, or minimal cost, for the reasons given above. The same rule should apply to any school with any other MIS who needs to move to Academy. Presumably they have to do the same work ( or less if they are a more elegant MIS ) for the conversion. It's churlish to complain that Capita are abusing their position on this count IMHO.

sparkeh

sparkeh

Posted
Posted
It is true that should Capita offer cut price offerings and free / cheap transfers of licences then they could very easily be accused of abusing a dominant position in the market.

 

Tricky isn't it, as the reverse could be argued, using their dominant position to charge excessive fees. I don't actually know the figures I understand from posts here that SIMS is significantly more expensive that its rival products. If the market was working, this would not be the case.

Sivadam

Sivadam

Posted
Posted
Tricky isn't it, as the reverse could be argued, using their dominant position to charge excessive fees. I don't actually know the figures I understand from posts here that SIMS is significantly more expensive that its rival products. If the market was working, this would not be the case.

 

I have been contacted by Capita to ask if I would host a visit from a school based not that far from here, to see our SIMS in action. They are currently with another 'popular' MIS Supplier and their 'contract' is due for renewal. Apparantly they can save money, over 5 years, by moving to SIMS!

 

Having said that, the school has not yet contacted me and so I do not know which of the packages they have been quoted for!

Sivadam

Sivadam

Posted
Posted
They could save even more money immediately by moving to ScholarPack or iSAMS.

Yep! Maybe so!

But with the risk of losing funtionality!

Or, in this case, not getting the extra functionality that SIMS would bring! :rolleyes:

localzuk

localzuk

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Yep! Maybe so!

But with the risk of losing funtionality!

Or, in this case, not getting the extra functionality that SIMS would bring! :rolleyes:

 

I'd question this statement - have you compared the products? For example, we were hard pressed to see any missing stuff from ScholarPack when we saw it a few months back, and they've added a raft of new features since then.

Anjelica

Anjelica

Posted
Posted
I have to agree with localzuk. We saw three products (and considered three others). The three we saw were all web based so no need to have software on PCs and had lots and lots of good features. At my age I wouldn't be considering a move to iSAMS if I didn't think it could do as much as SIMS if not more. I can do without the hassle of the move - I am only considering it because we believe it is the best move for our school.

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