Pricing from kcom

[Gibson335]

And now 2 months late!!

[sparkeh]

And now 2 months late!!

Yes we are less than impressed so far. Prices were supposed to be available in January and we were advised to order by end of March.

Still, I am, sadly, not surprised at the way things are working out.

[Gibson335]

Yes we are less than impressed so far. Prices were supposed to be available in January and we were advised to order by end of March.

Still, I am, sadly, not surprised at the way things are working out.

Indeed. I spoke to emPSN because our contract with them ends in July, not October, and their response was pretty much...well, just sign up for another 3 months on the current agreement...all very well, but given their staggering prices that might cost us money we can't afford!

[synaesthesia]

Too many providers are faffing about with prices and too scared to dip their toes in the water themselves. Everyone we've spoke to wants to see what prices we've already had.

Frankly, if people aren't willing to be honest and give at least a provisional worst-case price then they perhaps shouldn't be in consideration; they're clearly not there to do educational establishments any favours.

Virgin is definitely one. Another should know better.

[camel]

Just a few questions on the legalities...

 

Having searched Companies House, EMPSN Services LTD is not the registered company name for the company number stated on the empsn membership rules, articles and form documents published yesterday on the empsn.info website. My question; is this a legally binding document (when signed) if the registered company details are not on on the mentioned documentation? Any thoughts, can we become members of a company that technically doesn't exsit or have I got my wires crossed?

 

Also, EMBC Procument LTD, which is the registered name of the company for the company number provided in the documentation, is registered in Manchester? Any reason for this? impartiallity from the several councils that currently own the embc? Also, EMPSN Infrastructure LTD is also based at the same address.

 

Sorry for the throwing a spanner into the works...

[GrumbleDook]

A couple of things I can quickly comment on (but you can also contact emPSN / embc-pl about this, as suggested on their website) is about the company address. Eversheds is the legal firm used by EMBC, and is the principle point of contact for the company, so uses the legal address rather than the business office address of embc-pl (who do not own EMBC ... it is owned by the LAs).

 

I know that a lot of legal / contractual stuff has already been processed and there is more being done atm ... and even if stuff is sent to Companies House yesterday, it does take a few days for stuff to get updated on the database.

 

EMBC Infrastructure Company (you will hear it referred to as ICo) and Service Company (SCo) will operate from the same legal business address. embc-pl will become SCO, hence why the company number is the same but the name might still not appear as such on the Companies House database yet.

 

Please do contact embc-pl if you need more information.

[TheCrust]

With fairness to the information and balance Tony provides, I have been investigating commercial alternatives in light of a lack of firm information from KCOM and Capita.

 

I've don't think I have much choice at the moment - our governors are not going to consider any offering where firm costs and SLA is unknown when commercial equivalents are available for known costs (and costs that could be quite reasonable at that) and to the same specification and SLA.

 

One academy I know locally has already placed their order for a commercial connection - service to commence 1st August so they can change over in the summer rather than in the middle of term when the current contract ends - and I worry for what the primaries will end up with once they have been handed their costs at the last minute and they have been given no chance to compare and make an informed decision...

Edited March 5, 2012 by TheCrust

[GrumbleDook]

To be honest ... the phrase 'last minute' is not quite right here ... I know people are planning budgets and if you have a good price from an alternative vendor (with all associated costs) then if you wait another two weeks or another 2 months for a price from folk on the emPSN framework it makes little difference. If the main thing you are worried about is cost then you have a cost you can put into your budget ... and if the emPSN one comes in cheaper then that still fits within your budget. I used to have the exact same issue prior to being on EMBC at my last place ... not getting a price from NTL Business (as it was then) until last minute (and on occasion after the existing year had run out) but I always had another price to fall back on if needed.

 

The contract finishes in October ... not next week. I know we are all under pressure to plan but there should be some perspective on this. The reason there is a long lead time with this is to give some slack ... and yes, I know that it has been eaten into already but there is still plenty of time.

[Gibson335]

To be honest ... the phrase 'last minute' is not quite right here ... I know people are planning budgets and if you have a good price from an alternative vendor (with all associated costs) then if you wait another two weeks or another 2 months for a price from folk on the emPSN framework it makes little difference. If the main thing you are worried about is cost then you have a cost you can put into your budget ... and if the emPSN one comes in cheaper then that still fits within your budget. I used to have the exact same issue prior to being on EMBC at my last place ... not getting a price from NTL Business (as it was then) until last minute (and on occasion after the existing year had run out) but I always had another price to fall back on if needed.

 

The contract finishes in October ... not next week. I know we are all under pressure to plan but there should be some perspective on this. The reason there is a long lead time with this is to give some slack ... and yes, I know that it has been eaten into already but there is still plenty of time.

 

This is correct, of course. I, like many people, will have already looked at various non-emPSN options and will have their quote firmly in the back pocket to fall back on. So whilst I would agree that there's no immediate rush if you're happy to wait for an October changeover, there is slightly more urgency if you want to make those changes in July or August, especially with a 90 day lead-in. Putting options and recommendations to immediate line managers, to have that then discussed and agreed by SLT, and then finally ratified by Governors, all takes time as we all know. I think, also, in the back of people's minds the delays spread a little bit of doubt about how prepared the providers will be to make potentially a vast number of transitions at the same time.

[Achandler]

Although this doesn't actually affect me, budgeting is done in advance. Leased lines can take 60-120 days to get in place depending on your location and any extra work that needs to be completed, so these lines would need to be ordered before the summer holidays to get them ready for September, as noone can order in September to be ready in October.

 

Coming from a school that left the LA, along with 5 or 6 others all at once, I would suggest that unless the LA pull there finger out (ours wasn't able to) then the same will happen to EMBC as well, which may be a good or bad thing only time would tell. When we left the LA, it was only the primary schools I felt sorry for, we were given figures for what the costs were for everyone, as a secondary we questioned it priced alternatives etc. Primaries although given the same choice do nto have the same expertise available or the time and manpower to do the same, I have two primaries who have a shared fence with my school, they pay nearly 4k each to get 10MB from the local LA, plus filtering on top and I pay 8.5k to get 100MB. We didn't even have time to speak about jumping onto our connection (I could throw fibre through the window of the school its that close) and helping them out as the LA wanted them commited early.

 

EMBC need to get the situation sorted to give schools the best deal, time to choose others if they aren't the best deal. If the problem is that EMBC suppliers are useless then get new suppliers... I feel like these contracts seem to shock LAs, almost like they came out of nowhere!

[camel]

Update: Capita have updated/in process of updating their offerings on the embc, emPSN website. They finally have the "Day 1 bundle" pricing and more detail on costs.

[robk]

Does anyone know what happened to the services pricing from RM? It seems the "Framework" now only exists of Kcom and Capita. Which is not what was pitched 12 months ago!

 

Looking at the Capita setup costs taking a small no of services is going to be expensive.

[Gibson335]

Does anyone know what happened to the services pricing from RM? It seems the "Framework" now only exists of Kcom and Capita. Which is not what was pitched 12 months ago!

 

Looking at the Capita setup costs taking a small no of services is going to be expensive.

Well the KCOM package has its services from RM - KCOM are responsible for the connection. Regards Capita, it might be in their best interests to forego the setup costs for existing EMBC customers, but I can't see that happening.

[kaphc]

Regards Capita, it might be in their best interests to forego the setup costs for existing EMBC customers, but I can't see that happening.

 

Yes, if we're already using SUMS, Netsweeper etc. then I'm struggling to understand how we would need to pay a transition / setup fee to move to the OpenHive software if it's just a slightly updated version of the same thing we've been using already but just with a new name?

[Gibson335]

Yes, if we're already using SUMS, Netsweeper etc. then I'm struggling to understand how we would need to pay a transition / setup fee to move to the OpenHive software if it's just a slightly updated version of the same thing we've been using already but just with a new name?

 

I would assume it does require a migration of sorts to a new system or new location within the system, but I still think it would help their cause to waive these charges.

[kaphc]

Update: Capita have updated/in process of updating their offerings on the embc, emPSN website. They finally have the "Day 1 bundle" pricing and more detail on costs.

 

Does anyone actually understand the Capita "Day 1 bundle" pricing? Are they fixed costs plus annual costs per user? Clear as mud from that table!

[sparkeh]

Does anyone actually understand the Capita "Day 1 bundle" pricing? Are they fixed costs plus annual costs per user? Clear as mud from that table!

Yes its not the clearest, as I understand it you pay a one off setup fee and the annual cost.

[Gibson335]

Does anyone actually understand the Capita "Day 1 bundle" pricing? Are they fixed costs plus annual costs per user? Clear as mud from that table!

It's setup plus annual, but they haven't made it easy, because you get discounts the longer the contract, and they were initially suggesting discounts the more services you had, but not sure if that's still the deal. They have 'telesales' people to answer queries, and we all love telesales people don't we? I've asked for a straight quote for what I need for the length of time I want it, but it hasn't come back to me yet so will have to do some nudging.

[kaphc]

As I understand, the Day 1 Bundle pricing has been set up to show schools what they would need to pay to basically maintain continuity of what they already have and use. Then there's the Day 1 Bundle+ to add things like the portal, videoconferencing etc. Interesting that these are ALREADY suggesting a mininum of 2 years contract, so further discounts would only be available for even longer contracts I guess. Given that kcom are looking at 4 year contract for connectivity as well, there are quite a lot of restrictions on the contracts.

 

What I need to find out is what they class as a "user" especially when it comes to web filtering. Concurrent users? Number of statt? Number of staff + pupils? Number of machines? Does anyone know the answer to this already ..... save me a phone call?

[Gibson335]

What I need to find out is what they class as a "user" especially when it comes to web filtering. Concurrent users? Number of statt? Number of staff + pupils? Number of machines? Does anyone know the answer to this already ..... save me a phone call?

I tried asking the same question, because initially their section on the site suggested a potential site fee rather than per user. I asked because both our staff and student numbers change from term to term, year to year, so I questioned what figure constituted 'per user' and got no direct response...so I too would like to know how what figure to use.

[camel]

I tried asking the same question, because initially their section on the site suggested a potential site fee rather than per user. I asked because both our staff and student numbers change from term to term, year to year, so I questioned what figure constituted 'per user' and got no direct response...so I too would like to know how what figure to use.

 

A recent quote from Capita uses the total number of users in the school as the number for the filtering service. So with over 600 students and staff @ £2.02 each, plus set-up of a service they already run...

[Gibson335]

A recent quote from Capita uses the total number of users in the school as the number for the filtering service. So with over 600 students and staff @ £2.02 each, plus set-up of a service they already run...

 

Crucially, though, we could have 1500 users at the start of the contract and plus or minus 50 by the end of that term...so presumably they go by how many users you have at the renogotiation of the contract? Again, this could be made much clearer.

[synaesthesia]

Dammit this is confusing even for me.

 

Per user pricing - I think this is a daft idea dreamt up by someone who doesn't work in education. They need to come to some of my schools and tell them how their billing works, so I can laugh as they're beaten off the premises by angry bursars waving unfeasibly large calculators at them.

 

Why advertise something as "the easiest transition" whilst making it as obscure as possible... Will be interesting to see what prices come up.

Edited March 6, 2012 by synaesthesia

[GrumbleDook]

Per user pricing is used by a number of firms ... and the idea is based on the ability to pay as well as how heavily you will use a service. This model is being used by suppliers both on and off the emPSN framework. Some services are easy enough to work out based on the size of the school (basically banding things together) or a flat fee per school. Per user is done with VLEs, filtering products, etc ... and a direct comparison would be cloud-based services for business from Google and MS ... you pay per account there too. We keep saying that schools are like businesses ...

 

Transition ... most of the present services run off EMBC owned hardware in the EMBC data centre. If you want to move the service to somewhere, including Capita's equivalent service, then some transition will take place. Some services you can do this manually (e.g. web hosting) but others are easier to have managed for you (e.g. mailboxes, filter lists :group settings / whitelists / blacklists / etc, user accounts if using the central IdP) but these cost to have someone do the work. So, you work out what services you want, see if it works out better to do the work yourself to pay someone else to do it for you.

[synaesthesia]

It's not that side of it that's a problem - some people appear to be of the idea (understandably, reading their blurb on emPSN) that they will continue to get the same service from essentially the same product as they have currently (i.e. mailmarshall, SUMS and what-not) however everything I read about openhive shows it's a completely different product rather than a rebadge or rename?

 

Re the per user thing; VLE's are understandable, filtering a little less so - in some schools there is such a high number of pupil changes (staff less-so) it seems to be another inconvenience to the school? I might be over-dramatising it a little (hey, you should know me by now, T!) but this is the impression I've had from a couple of schools who's finance people are quite good (compared to, erm, others, shall I say? ) For instance, primary school with no incumbent IT staff other than a visiting technician perhaps every fortnight or more; I'm guessing there's a way to automatically add these per-user costs to pupil finances, if indeed it's done live. This is why I'd like to know how it's billed - an average, end of year based on some figures, monthly amounts like some sort of head-count meter reading?

 

These are questions I'm being asked myself hence putting them forward here