RogerAnscombe

Hi Gary, Please do not roll back to SP2. We spoke to your colleague last week about this and suggested this may be caused by a graphics driver. We emailed last week to check on progress but we have not heard since so assumed the systems are now ok. Our technical support is free so please call us on 01629 534134

Hi Peter, Your comments remind me of a certain Dragons' Den performance when you also tried to persuade us that wrong was right. You state that "I don't rumor, but prefer fact and reference in my communications" so let's have some facts. MiniFrameUK Ltd is not, and has never been, a subsidiary of any other company. It is a UK registered company, totally owned by UK shareholders and run entirely by UK Directors. It was established at the request of MiniFrame in Israel to distribute their products in UK and to reduce confusion with activities of Kira Supplies Ltd who sell products from a variety of Manufacturers. The name MiniFrameUK was chosen by the Israeli company, not us. Rumours are very easy to sow and you state you do not rumour so let's have some facts from you. If you know of any customer in Manchester, school or business, that has bought or borrowed a SoftXpand Ecoware system is is unhappy with it, please let me know because I am unaware of any. Your story about customers who have bought Greenhive does not agree with the story I was given by Colin, nor does it agree with the information I was given by the IT Managers at the organisations who told me they have never heard of VeryPC. Colin told me that he had merely given a list of customers who he knew had purchased SoftXpand even though he knew it was while he worked for Kira Supplies. If you wish to remain a "respected member of the industry" then you need to start to be more honest.

It is true that reputations are developed by a trust in individuals. We used to have an employee who would happily tell customers what he thought they wanted to hear instead of the truth. The result was sometimes a disappointment with the goods received. Happily he is no longer with us and now works for you Peter and I notice from various blogs that he has not changed. A recent press release from VeryPC listed a number of customers that had supposedly bought from Very. As these are customers of Kira Supplies, I called them to find out and was told they have never heard of VeryPC and certainly not bought from them. It is not my policy to criticise the opposition and I am very sorry that you Peter have decided to use this forum to spread accusations when you are not aware of the facts. SoftXpand Ecoware has been used in a number of schools for over 3 years and I have happily extended the warranty from the original 3 years to 5 years as the failure rate is around 1%. One school that had nearly 400 seats of SoftXpand kept 3 spare systems in a cupboard for emergency replacement. When they were still there 12 months later, they decided instead to roll out an additional 18 seats for students. I can only repeat that MiniFrameUK is very much alive and has resellers who now cover the whole of the UK. MiniFrameUK only sells the products developed by MiniFrame in Israel, unlike LondonWeb who has also been appointed as a distributor for SoftXpand. We continue to do well because of our expertise and total honesty (with our current staff). I would much prefer to continue to sell excellent products and services due to the excellent reputation we have built up over the years (Including with Manchester LEA) rather than attacking the competition. I trust that those who read this forum will listen to our customers rather than competitors and ex employees. As the one company within UK that has the most experience with SoftXpand I will be happy to respond to any questions from schools which I believe is what this forum should be about.

Hi All, It has been a long time since I have looked at this thread as I have been too busy selling Multiseat computing all over the country. I do need to correct an error I have just noticed. Kira Supplies has always been a VAR selling SoftXpand and other IT products. MiniFrameUK is the UK distributor of SoftXpand software and works through VARs from Scotland down to Kent and Cornwall. MiniFrameUK only supplies the products developed by MiniFrame in Israel. Some confusion is caused because Kira Supplies has put together a hardware package that works particularly well with SoftXpand and this is called Ecoware. Ecoware is also available nationwide through the same VARs that have signed up with MiniFrameUK. Following a number of pilot installs, SoftXpand has now been included as an approved technology for some of the BSF projects that have not been cancelled. If anyone wants up to date information on MiniFrameUK or Kira Supplies please talk to us rather than listen to false rumours.

Thank you karvijn for sending me the link to the reseller in Belgium. All is now clear. This site has nothing at all to do with SoftXpand. It is very obviously a totally diffeernt solution. I can tell this as SoftXpand does not operate on Linux. There are a number of other multi seat computer solutions around that work very differently and therefore will need a different licensing model. nComputing is one example that uses access devices in the same way as thin clients and therefore needs to follow the thin client licensing model. With SoftXpand there are no such devices to license. It is also possible that Microsoft have a different licensing arrangement in Belgium to the one in UK. As I only sell in UK, I am only concerned with what is legal in UK. If you want to know the legal position in any other country you will need to contact the SoftXpand dealer there but please make sure you are looking at the right product.

I do not know who the Belgium dealer is but they seem to be confused about how SoftXpand works. SoftXpand works on Windows XP pro, not yet on WIndows 7 so karvijn must be confusing SoftXpand with some other technology. Also SoftXpand has nothing to do with Steady State which is a Microsoft product. Interesting that it no longer works with their own latest operating system. There has been a lot of call on this forum for a definitive statement form Microsoft but we all know that is unlikely to happen as the only correct answer would not be to their advantage, however I can now supply the next best thing. Andrew Miller MP is the chairman of the UK Parliament IT Committee (PITCOM) and in his official posision aproached Microsoft to get their answer which I quote below. It is interesting that Microsoft are even unsure whether one or more licenses of Office would be required. I have always suggested multiple copies if only on moral grounds. Quote from Andrew Miller MP "Some time ago I spoke to the Government Affairs officer of Microsoft and I am confident that there are no licensing issues regarding the operating system. If you have (say) 5 users on your system using 1 processor, that equals one operating system. However as there are 5 users there is an argument that there should be a 5 user licence for applications, but even that is tenuous. Regards, Andrew Miller MP"

Hi Gov, Thank you for your interest in SoftXpand, "The Ultimate Green PC". SoftXpand is sold through resellers and if you would like to forward your contact details to me I will ask Intalect who are the reseller covering Lincolnshire to contact you with an exact quote. As a rough guide you should expect to pay around £3900 for an 18 user suite (3 X 6 user). This will include all keyboards, mice, usb hubs and OS licenses. No CALs are required with SoftXpand. Additionally you may require monitors if you do not have these already, and in a primary school I would recommend headphones for each student to reduce excess noise in the classroom. There are now a number of SoftXpand installations in Lincolnshire schools so there should be a reference site close to you. Regards Roger

Hi Bluetooth, I look forward to meeting you soon and showing you the very latest release of SoftXpand. It is now even better than you have seen before. I have checked with Oriel College and they are using Sophos enterprise console/em library. Regards Roger

Hi Bluetooth, You are correct. There is no problem with the Microsoft licensing. Unfortunately a few people have spread a rumour about the licensing issue and rumours are like burst feather pillows. Once released you can never collect all the feathers back together again. I do not know the exact version of Sophos used at Oriel but I do know that it is a suite and not just AV. I also know that he spoke to Sophos about their licensing and was informed that he would only need one license per cluster as there is only one hard drive to check. He tells me that this has saved his school an additional £4,000. He also told me at BETT that if he used standalone PCs throughout his school, he would need to employ an additional 2 technicians just to maintain them. The savings from SoftXpand go on and on. Regards Roger

Hi Bluetooth, Your are correct that the keyboards and mice do need to be USB apart from one set that can be connected to the standard PS2 ports but this will not save you much. Most manufacturers supply a new keyboard and mouse with each new PC so we follow suit and each SoftXpand system is normally supplied complete with 6 keyboards, 6 mice and 6 4 port USB hubs. Using SoftXpand, each user will log onto your domain in exactly the same way as if they had separate individual PCs. That is one of the Joys of SoftXpand, apart from the increase in PC performance, the end users generally do not know that they are sharing one PC. Oriel technical College in Norfolk use Sophos for their antivirus on all their SoftXpand units and have saved a lot of their budget. Your nearest reseller is CCL at Tong. They usually have a 6 user demo in their showroom but last time I was there it was out on loan to a school. If you have any questions you can always call me on 01629 700270 Regards Roger

Thank you Peter for that comment. You have pointed out exactly what I have been saying. Microsoft are trying to have one rule for themselves and a different rule for others. This may work in some developing countries but in Europe and US this is illegal. This is why both US and EU have splapped enormous fines recently on Microsoft. I agree that Microsoft have every right to sell any product they like but by European law then must then allow others do supply similar or better products. Any organisation is of course free to chose conventional desktop PCs, thin clients or "The Ultimate Green PC". It all comes down to quality and performance. As far as cost is concerned there is great confusion here as SoftXpand is always sold and quoted for a comlete solution including PC, keyboards, mice, USB hubs and software whereas all the adverts for nComputing I have seen are just for the access devices and ignore the controlling PC and additional CALs required. When all the costs are added up I believe SoftXpand is a clear winner but I would rather you looked back through this forum as this is much more convincing coming from end users who have tried both. I joined this forum for one reason only as I wanted to bring some facts to answer questions that were being asked by the members. I sell SoftXpand because I believe in the product and the benefits it brings not just to the end users but also to the wider community through carbon savings. I was offered NComputing to sell but I turned it down as I considered it to be an inferior product to SoftXpand. You sell nComputing so we both need to be very carefull that this forum does not degenerate into a tennis match. Both SoftXpand and nComputing are multiseat solutions and both will save carbon to differing degrees so both are valuable products and I am very happy for them to be tested side by side.

Hi Ric, Win 7 may be more difficult than XP. We will have to work on the licensing as well as the technology just as we did with the XP version. If you interpret the XP EULA to suggest that SoftXpand is illegal then you have to admit that MS Multipoint Mouse is also illegal, but you tell me that you are already using MP Mouse. I don't want to be rude but this sounds like double standards to me or are you just satisfied that Microsoft will not sue you for using their own product? It is difficult isn't it?

Hi nut-ed, Again you are confusing two unconnected products. SoftXpand and nComputing are very different products as you can tell by some comments stating how difficult it is to upgrade the OS when nComputing is used. This is not a problem with SoftXpand. SoftXpand is just another application running on an XP Pro PC. It does not change the OS or hack into it like other multiseat systems do. If SoftXpand was a problem then Microsoft would have produced a statement by now just as they did with nComputing. They have not because SoftXpand is not a problem. We might be a thorn in their flesh but that is more likely to be because they may be annoyed that they did not think about multiseat computing first.

Hi tmcd35, I understand your concern over the Win7 license clause but as SoftXpand doesn't use Win7 it is just not an issue. SoftXpand runs on XP Pro which I hope everybody now understands is not a problem at all. The only suggestions that I can find in the whole of this forum questioning the legality of software have been quoting EULAs from either Win7 or MultiPoint Server neither of which have anything to do with SoftXpand.

Hi Ric, You are correct. SoftXpand and MS Multipoint Mouse are very different products just as nComputing and MultiPoint Server are also very different to SoftXpand. The reason for pointing out the Multipoint Mouse is just to show that Microsoft are content with multiple users on a single XP unit. In this case up to 25. The number of users is therefore not an issue. There are many applications especially with stockbrokers, and I suppect a number of school IT managers, that use multiple monitors on one PC so the number of monitors is not an issue either. As I stated earlier MS cannot have one rule for themselves and another rule for others. They know this and have therefore chosen to keep quiet. In their position I think I would be tempted to do the same. MiniFrame and Microsoft are not in competition. SoftXpand has been writen specifically for a windows platform and only for a windows platform. We are therefore insisting that anyone who wishes to purchase the most eco friendly desktop solution must also purchase a windows license. No units ever leave our premises without a full legal copy of Windows. Roger