GREED

This was not the week to come to America me thinks

I have local news on. He is hold up in an apartment block and police are all around. They fear the room is booby-trapped. Hoping they end it soon, then I can get home. Wish i had staying in the airport overnight.

Yer I would really like to come home now... oh wait I'm now stuck in the hotel...

Right so this is my point. If I wanted to find out the intricate details of what MIS every state school is using (don't worry, I have far too much to do to bother with that!!! Besides, I know the anwser already!), then I can send this to the school under FOI and they have to respond. My point being, with 1000s of hardware vendors out there, what is to stop every one of them spamming every school for this information so they build their internal market research so they know how to pressure schools when their budgets come in, or their renewals come around... If they all did it, a school would crash under their legal obligation to reply to each and every one...

So, what stops every IT company using FoI to ask them for details of all their hardware, software, infrastructure spend and all that? I'll admit I am not up on FoI, but it sounds like a stepping stone to spam every school in the country for your detailed market research. And as it is FoI you have to reply, you'll end up hiring someone just to do this for the mountains of emails you'll receive...

Are you taking a look at all players in the market before you jump?

Obama coming into Logan today... I wanna fly home... please don't let security be too bad!

I had thought that Vik... but while I might be very vocal... Google won't listen! It actually serves as a reminder that I need to get our google listing up the charts!

As much as I would love that too... na it doesn't happen that way.

Not train enough staff to support you would be my first quip!

Bahaha! It might not seem that way because I am very passionate about Aspen and it's abilities, but I still have huge respect for SIMS, what it does and how well it does in the market.

Since Aspen was built 10 years ago, it has always been the same product. It has always been Aspen. Those same customers from 10 years ago are still with us.

Aspen MIS 4.9 will be released to UK schools on Friday 26th April. As usual with Aspen MIS, upgrades will happen behind the scenes and coordinated by the local delivery partners. Customers need only be aware that the upgrade is occurring. Aspen MIS 4.9 brings some exciting new features specific for the UK, including a re-imagined Exams interface making the whole workflow simpler to manage, as well as intuitive searching features. Further enhancements to attendance and markbooks are also coming with the release, in response to work continually carried out within the market, and some tweaks to timetabling to take full advantage of the power of the engine for the UK.

Really @PhilNeal you really wanna start this? ROFL. I'm rather pleased with 1.14m students using Aspen alone. Knowing I know competitor numbers too, we are very comparable. Considering too we have never, ever had a customer move away from Aspen, I like our retention rate just as much! How about 30m students in 148 countries being reached via Follett software platforms. Appreciate the excuse to boast

Are you talking about that company that has been doing cloud MIS, VLE and Library for 10 years plus, proven with over 1 million students...

Oh come on @PhilNeal as if I was gonna let that one go!

I flew in at 1pm EST, to Boston Logan Airport, drove past right when this happened more or less. In my hotel last night I was talking for hours with runners, friends and family who were there. The Mobile network we shut for a while and flights out grounded...

Oh... another MIS supplier now has a Library Management System to boot... Catching up I see

Lol Matt you are on top form! I gotta say I had the same reaction, you asked for a structured answer to two questions that have come direct from a research brief, there is no attempt to interact with this generous community but wanting to glean the information as quickly as quickly and completely as possible. If it is not your field of study then you either need to learn it, listen more in class or do the actual researching yourself, not just type MIS help into google and click the top link. Besides, in this case #1 google result is not right for you in this case.

Partner??

I think that document is quite readily available if you know where to look Matt. Interesting...

Missing one word there Matt: yet. No LA yet has migrated to aspen. Watch this space. I'm not worried about my job at all! We're here to stay!

Maybe not, but that wasn't the requirement. Either here nor IMLS. IMLS was designed to assist maintained schools and LA in their procurement processes. Here, KK20 was asking for other providers of MIS, which the list gives them.

So Phil, giving advice when asked as we are here, how would you suggest the OP get an easy list of other suppliers on the market? I think we can assume they have spoken to other schools locally to them, leaving them with their current 3 so far. Interesting list then already... I don't think the OP would simply pick from the list without investigating... this list is a helpful aid to know what else is available. Like it or loathe it the DfE recognises the listed suppliers as meeting enough requirements for schools MIS. Granted you could be on the list without software based on how it was scored. Actually everyone on the list has what is considered an operational MIS solution. I think it is critical to say that the IMLS framework, completed now over a year ago, lists 8 suppliers (I think it is) and actually every one of them currently has customers operating their MIS. So every one of them has software. I would argue each one of them is 'doing the job' for their customers too. Perhaps not for all schools, but each to their own. In that respect, the IMLS framework list is a very good place to look at the major players in the market.

So when you say other programmes do you mean third parties or in house systems?