TES: IT Company Accused Of 'Excessive' Profits

[6Foot2]

Link: IT company accused of 'excessive' profits - News - TES Connect

 

The same article in Friday's paper had slightly different content:

 

...Due to Capita Children's Services' strong standing in the school market place it would be seen as using its position unfairly against its competitors if it did not pass these costs on to its customers...

[featured_spectre]

Not exactly wrong are they...the article is apt to say the least!

[sparkeh]

Capita profiteering? Quelle Surprise!

 

When Microsoft and Adobe are on the other side of the re-licensing issue, something has to be wrong.

[webman]

Hopefully this will pave the way for greater competition in the MIS market, allowing other providers to offer cheaper and better services and products.

[sparkeh]

Hopefully this will pave the way for greater competition in the MIS market, allowing other providers to offer cheaper and better services and products.

 

Well the dollar signs might have some effect?

RM, a competitor to Capita, said it does not charge schools that convert to academy status for new licences and has seen more business as a result of Capita’s decision.

[farquea]

we are moving to an Academy in September and had someone in from Capita to talk us through the transfer process. Basically while not really knowing what she was talking about, we were told to just change our DFE number and school name would incur a transfer feee in the thousands. When this point was argued by our school bursar the saleswoman conveniently found some papers which said something that meant maybe we didnt have to pay the fee and would get back to us. Complete joke of a company, software is something i've seen university students produce better, the amount of updates and patches stuck on top is daft and so many simple bugs in it.

[pcstru]

Due to Capita Children’s Services’ strong standing in the school marketplace it would be seen as using its position unfairly against its competitors if it did not pass these costs on to its customers

 

So it *costs* £20K to issue a new licence? That sounds rather inefficient, even for Capita.

[Edu-IT]

So it *costs* £20K to issue a new licence? That sounds rather inefficient, even for Capita.

Hey! There's going to be a lot of paper shuffling involved. ;-)

[localzuk]

I don't get their argument about competition laws. There is no law stating that a new license for SIMS.net must be at the price level it is at.

 

There is no law stating that they can't charge a more reasonable licensing fee, when comparing with their competitors.

[pete]

My take on it was the schools who bought via the LA have been getting a cheap deal while not an Academy compared to schools who have their own site license.

[Edu-IT]

My take on it was the schools who bought via the LA have been getting a cheap deal while not an Academy compared to schools who have their own site license.

That is it. Acadamies buy their own 'owned' licence where as schools often use the LA licences. They're not owned by the school.

[localzuk]

That is right, yes, but it still doesn't answer why the licenses are so expensive in the first place. Every other supplier is at least half the price, most even cheaper than that.

[featured_spectre]

Other suppliers licencing costs come in at roughly £7000...which is a little 1/3 the cost of Capita!

[plexer]

So academies cannot continue using the licence from their LEA paying the LEA a yearly maintenance fee?

 

Ben

[localzuk]

So academies cannot continue using the licence from their LEA paying the LEA a yearly maintenance fee?

 

Ben

 

No, because the LEA can't transfer licenses like that from what I've been told. They can continue to get support from the LEA though.

[CAM]

- LEA buys in bulk, gets nice discount but with a "Thou shalt not transfer" clause.

- School goes academy but cannot use LEA licence as they are no longer under control of the LEA and the licence cannot be transferred.

- School must either dig up an old licence from before they were an academy (and Capita will still try to argue it is invalid, search for it on here) or pay for a new one.

- Both LEA and school owned licences still require a maintenance fee.

 

Way to treat loyal customers tbh, especially those who have invested with costly extras...

[synaesthesia]

Complete joke of a company, software is something i've seen university students produce better, the amount of updates and patches stuck on top is daft and so many simple bugs in it.

 

Careful, if it was that simple then those students would be in the money... look around these forums about SIMS and the end result is one thing - there is rarely anything better, and if you think otherwise you need to open your eyes a little. After all, that's more fuel to the fire - Capita have schools bent over a barrel in that way too. Anythign about the patches/updates is entirely moot because (most) of the time it's nothing to do with the software, but governmental demands.

 

Besides which, yes they do make far too much money from schools/LEA/government and damned right they shouldn't. They're leeches.

[featured_spectre]

Hopefully this will pave the way for greater competition in the MIS market, allowing other providers to offer cheaper and better services and products.

 

We all know Capita will keep their prices high because of the market share that they have. When they realise that they are losing customers all over, they MIGHT change there strategy, but no guarantees.

[webman]

Hopefully this will pave the way for greater competition in the MIS market, allowing other providers to offer cheaper and better services and products.

 

Thanks very much to the very narrow-minded forum member who gave me negative rep for that reply, with the comment "Wishful thinking". Yes, it is wishful thinking, and about time something had an impact on the monopoly!

[penfold_99]

I asked Phil Neal about this on twitter

 

@schoolsict Capita charging £20K to licence when becoming an Academy IT company accused of 'excessive' profits - News - TES Connect @Phil_Neal is this still current capita charging policy?

 

From Phil_Neal

 

@schoolsict It is our policy that an academy has to license in its own right. ~£12K for a sec. We have already spent well into 7 figures!

 

My Follow up

 

@Phil_Neal Why not allow Academy's to transfer their current LA licence FOC ? The schools has already invested money to your 7 figures!!

[localzuk]

What've they invested their 7 figures on? It isn't on changes to SIMS.net. My guess is sales and marketing. FMS shouldn't be included in that, as it is a separate cost.

 

Also, 7 figures? That isn't a huge amount of money to invest on something used by thousands of schools. If academies carry on growing in number, and, say 2000 schools go that way, then that is £24m in licenses. 2000 schools is a conservative figure too, as the number is only ever going to increase. They will have made well past 7 figures back from fees from the schools that have bought SIMS.net so far.

 

So, that makes little sense other than confirming that their profits are excessive.

[bodminman]

Thanks very much to the very narrow-minded forum member who gave me negative rep for that reply, with the comment "Wishful thinking". Yes, it is wishful thinking, and about time something had an impact on the monopoly!

 

I thought it was fair comment so you can have a thumbs up from me!

[CyberNerd]

I thought it was fair comment so you can have a thumbs up from me!

 

same +rep

[kmount]

same +rep

 

Again.

[featured_spectre]

same +rep

 

I have apparently rep'd @webman recently, so when I can rep again...rinse and repeat