FROGOS - Anyone seen it?

[Simcfc73]

I am waiting to have a demo.

 

All I know is its a slimmed down version of frog and will cost less (10 times less and we may buy it )

[mthomas08]

Went to the Frog Conference and must say we got a quick peak - instantly impressed which is rare.

 

Designed to be much cleaner and easier to use on creation of websites (also designed for mobile devices like the iPad). They have also setup a bunch of templates for users.

 

I keep hearing about the price drops - probably because FROGOS wont have all the additions that Frog3 has. Once FrogOS comes out they have admitted that the rest of stuff to work with it will come later. I also like the drive access, no longer needing to upload files just drag and drop.

 

They have 20 schools signed up for the Beta right now and I believe its early next year for the release. Whats annoying though is I could have signed up but I dont have the time they requested

[S.C.]

We got a preview on Monday from Karl Bolland. Frog OS is in no way slimmed down, it's completely rebuilt. I think (but don't quote me) that Frog are intending offering schools hosted solution as an option. Although for us, we'd would have always gone with the server system - otherwise you're using up your bandwidth.

 

FrogOS looks really cool, has been rebuilt from the ground up and (brace yourself) doesn't have a toolkit. But that's because it doesn't need one. It will make more sense when you get a demo. There's a couple of important features missing right now, but they are on their way and we'll be moving to when its ready.

[Simcfc73]

Thanks, they will need to lower the price for us to be seriously interested to be honest. I like the integration with mobile devices... its needed more than ever nowadays.

[Simcfc73]

Just an update. I have a quote and its not as scary as the full blown version. Real shame they don't do write back to Sims (SchoolAnywhere does) and I need to see how it integrates with Sims. I have a logon to play with to check it out. Its sub £10k for us by the way.

[wardsidjame]

A bit off there, it is the new version of Frog and is nothing like the previous. Went to the launch on Friday and was impressed, very impressed. It is the same price as Frog 3 I think but miles ahead of anything I have seen out there.

 

It will have Sims write back soon as well.

 

Also AD SSO, Google Apps, 365 etc

[Simcfc73]

Lots of stuff seem to be soon, parental gateway, sims write back, IE compatability. Will wait 12 months and see if it gets out of beta.

[TheCrust]

We went to a Frog event at Ninestyles on Friday last week, and I received my FrogOS demo account details from the service desk this morning.

 

I have to say that considering I developed an almost instant dislike to Frog 3 that has not abated through use, my first impressions of OS are very good - it's a lot slicker than 3 which is looking horribly clunky and dated in comparison.

 

There is the promise of true HTML5 cross-platform support which is going to be a big win for pretty much anyone and it was demonstrated running quite happily in Chrome, and we were assured that Firefox, Safari, IE support is all there.

 

We were told that if you're interested in looking at FrogOS, the first port of call should be the Service Desk. They can advise you on what your server may / may not need to run optimally with OS (some servers may benefit from a memory upgrade), and set you up with some demo accounts so you can have a play on their central system.

[robknowles]

Hi,

 

We had FROG OS installed just before Easter, as we are one of their Champion Schools. We did have a ram upgrade - now running with 12GB.

 

Works great in Chrome but also Internet Explorer as well. We have also tested it on iPADs (not much though) and it works perfectly fine on those as well, where-as FROG v3 was hit and miss in terms of mobile devices.

 

Much quicker and slicker than v3 and has some nice features. Completely redefined interface. I must admit does leave pretty much every other VLE I've seen behind. From what I can gather schools can request to be upgraded, although I believe there's a big queue so it may be a few weeks as they are slowly rolling it out to schools so it's done properly.

 

Cheers,

 

Rob

[Tallwood_6]

Haven't been to any of the events but have had a bit of a play with the demo site and yea it looks good and is tablet friendly but is currently missing a lot of functionality. Everything is very much centred around creating a site or webpage which I'm not sure about, I.e you want to assign a class a piece of work you've done in word you can't just assign this like you could on Frog 3 it has to be turned or embeded into a website which it will do for you quickly and easily but why does everything have to exist and be assigned in this fashion?

[TheCrust]

@robknowles 12Gb? Crikey - the figure mentioned to us was 8Gb, which we assumed was down to the fact that OS runs side-by-side with 3, essentially duplicating the requirement on resources so they were doubling the memory in the box to accommodate it.

 

Did you end up with 12Gb as a result of trial-and-error as OS progressed through the development and test stages, or did the service desk stipulate that from the outset before they knew for sure how it would run on a server in a "live" environment?

[wardsidjame]

Been running the test site (latest version) and had our ICT department create a load of resources, the site thing doesn make sense once you get your head arround it but i agree a quick homework aspect is needed as well. We have some homework which isnt on Frog and is a link such as, your homework is on mymaths, this is currently done in 2 clicks.

 

We have kiosk moded some chrome books and sso with google apps, this is excellent, a good way to get staff using Frog more and limits the management of laptops. In tests nothing we have tried in Frog Os hasnt worked on them, 3 seconds boot time and 7 hours of bettery. 200 quid each, sccrom works, google apps, browsing (only pain is impero doesnt but we can manage that on smoothwall).

[robknowles]

@TheCrust When we original had FrogOS installed the implementation team said we needed 12GB Ram from the outset. We have 4 x 2GB sticks to compliment the existing 2 x 2GB sticks we had.

[mthomas08]

Looking at these responses it completely explains why certain people at my previous job wanted Frog out quick. Shame really because this FrogOS does seem to be the bees knees, but at the end of the day we can't all care about whats best for the students .

 

Good to see FrogOS seeming popular, hopefully i can get my hands on it at some point.

[Love_Sausage]

We had a demo this week, it's certainly impressive. Very slick and packed full of features, but the demo we had and our demo logins suffer really badly from lag. If this is how it works "in the cloud" then it wouldn't take long before it would be frustrating to the point of not using it. Typing a sentence and then seeing it appear letter by letter 5 seconds later soon gets tiring when you're checking for spelling mistakes and the like.

 

Of course, if you get a server then I can imagine that problem will largely disappear, as long as you can afford to add another 7k or so to the already hefty setup cost.

[TheCrust]

I've upgraded our Frog box to 16Gb in readiness for OS - only to receive a "standard" email from the support desk stating that our server did not meet the minimum requirements for running Frog3 and OS side-by-side on the same server. Hmmm.

 

Noticed also in the same email was details of the pricing model for OS: £2500 per school, plus a £2-per-student surcharge. So if your school has 1000 students, you pay £4500 per year. Not sure how they charge if you have a lot of guest students, i.e. share a course with another local school. That question has yet to be answered.

 

All schools will move to this subscription-based model if you use FrogOS. Those new users still in their initial "maintained" period will stay with a perpetual license until the end of that period, then they will move to a subscription license (which handily will include Frog3 free - gee, thanks!)

 

The one thing I've not yet seen with FrogOS is the administration side. I hope we don't have to rely on a modified version of the Admin toolkit used by 3 - that's just dire!

[JonB251]

Just wondering how people are getting on a bit further down the line with FrogOS? We are in the process of upgrading to FrogOS and have had our current server upgraded with 16GB RAM. We are planning on running both FrogOS and Frog 3 side by side but it would be helpful if anyone could let us know if they have experienced any difficulties/ bugs/ network traffic problems before we decide to do this. Any info would be greatly appreciated!

[MrWu]

Hi

 

We have just activated FrogOS running on new unbadged Dell Server supplied by Frog, we are running alongside Frog 3 and synched a few users today. I'm a bit surprised its very sluggish vs Frog 3' running this on an iPad, PC, Andriod and Surface RT, all slower than Frog 3 in comparison. Looks slick though but it crashes a lot on my iPad and also certain functions like uploading files don't work on RT or the standard andriod browser.

[TheCrust]

Did Frogtrade stipulate you had to have a SSL certificate installed on the server before they would install and activate the FrogOS installation?

 

I got this requirement dropped on me the other week. I was going to send them a certificate from our internal CA but they insisted it has to be a fully-validated certificate from a list of pre-approved public CAs (presumably to maintain compatibility with the mobile apps they are developing). Fortunately the CA I use for public certs (IPSCA) is on their list - but appears to have shut up shop so I have to go and purchase a certificate from another vendor, annoyingly!

[MrWu]

Did Frogtrade stipulate you had to have a SSL certificate installed on the server before they would install and activate the FrogOS installation?

 

I got this requirement dropped on me the other week. I was going to send them a certificate from our internal CA but they insisted it has to be a fully-validated certificate from a list of pre-approved public CAs (presumably to maintain compatibility with the mobile apps they are developing). Fortunately the CA I use for public certs (IPSCA) is on their list - but appears to have shut up shop so I have to go and purchase a certificate from another vendor, annoyingly!

 

They did not advise me but I bought a SSL anyway since our original Frog3 didn't have one. Turned out later that we needed one for FrogOS. I bought my one from 123.reg.

[wardsidjame]

Just started on my Frog Learn and since the last few updates it has come on leaps and bounds, as now works between systems, it's now much faster and has planet estream, encyclopaedia britannica integration and I am learning integration. The apps Frog Drive and Frog Snap allow users to access files and folders on their ios devices and take pictures directly into the platform. Our staff are starting to use it and since we have put in system wide ios printing and group call emerge some now don't even touch their pcs.

 

Given it's only a few but it is all going the correct way and working, a little slow in dev but when it comes out it works and that used to be a big issue with frog 3.

 

I'm just hoping they keep this up as it is going to be an excellent product but they need to concentrate on the core and allow a lot of 3rd party integration, we use our vle for lots of Sso and a core set of functions, frog 3 I think was over developed and this is what lead to some schools becoming unhappy as you started to need a dedicated tech.