Grainge, Derek wrote:

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The reason why I have chosen Moodle/PHP/Mysql is that in the end captia has said they are going for a web based version of SIMS. So....I thought I would beat them to it!! lol

Interesting. A few years back Capita said they were going for a web-based interface; then they said that they were abandoning that and where going for what they called 'thin client' Unless you know something I don't about where Capita are going next?

Our LEA (who are sadly very "in" with Capita) are supposed to be trialing the web interface. So it does exist, but it was certainly delayed in roll-out. (Want to bet what the browser compatibility of said web-interface will be like?)

So what you have is a .net set of executables and you need to run them on a fairly up-to-date windows PC- which is actually a fairly fat client with no server, but with MSSQL data streams as 'thin' as they can manage. Not at all what they promised.

I can only assume that they mean using a central server for all the processing, with clients just generating the pretty pictures - pretty much what SIMS .Net does with MS SQL server. As you say, the platform support and minimum spec for this software has meant upgrades for a lot of client workstations in some schools. Others have had to purchase a £5k server....

I think now Microsoft own part of the company. I doubt that this would have had anything to do with the decision to go .net executables though ;)

This may sound silly, but are these *genuine* .Net programs? I suspect not. If they were, someone might stand a chance of running them under Mono. On a related aside, I saw a presentation by Serco before Christmas of the CMIS (SIMS-like) software. Although closed-source itself, it can use any SQL compliant backend - they have used Postgres and Oracle as well as MS SQL, for example. The web interface does not yet function entirely in firefox, but they are working on that. Also, the client-side application (necessary for some more advanced features) is Windows-only, but can be installed on each workstation or installed to a network share. I explained to them afterwards how this meant that they could provide an entirely Linux hosted system, through using Samba. Tony