"Shallow people" will go for the glitz of the Microsoft stand, which in terms of real estate is predictably dominating. They are pushing some

They were also the only company I found there who were leaping at people and trying to sell there stuff there and then.

A good day - low Linux presence :(

Indeed one of the machines on the Fen System stand was running Windows. I did notice one stand had a Cobalt Qube on it, also NTL are pushing the NetPilot... -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763

On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, Mark Evans wrote:

...

A good day - low Linux presence :( Indeed one of the machines on the Fen System stand was running Windows.

...in order to demonstrate Cygwin/XFree86 and show people how they could dip their toes in the water by giving everyone access to Linux on the desktop without first ditching their existing Windows installations! It was good to meet several of you at BETT, although I'm still puzzled by the curious fact that almost everyone here chose Thursday. Those that didn't make it will probably be pleased to know that the interest in using Linux was phenomenal: at least an order of magnitude higher than last year. On Thursday and Friday we were busy throughout the day (Wednesday and Saturday are the quiet days at BETT). It was interesting to see that the resistance to using non-Microsoft products was very, very low - only one person that I spoke to said that they wouldn't consider Linux because of their existing commitment to Microsoft. The new MS licensing schemes are predictably unpopular and this is not helping RM; Connect version 3 will apparently be XP based and so schools wishing to remain with RM may have to upgrade all their hardware to be XP capable at the same time as paying for an RM upgrade and XP licences. All in all, a very successful show. I was particularly pleased to be told about two open-source school management information systems that were nearing public release. More to follow later... Michael

On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, Mark Evans wrote:

...

...

A good day - low Linux presence :( Indeed one of the machines on the Fen System stand was running Windows.

....in order to demonstrate Cygwin/XFree86 and show people how they could dip their toes in the water by giving everyone access to Linux on the desktop without first ditching their existing Windows installations!

It was good to meet several of you at BETT, although I'm still puzzled by the curious fact that almost everyone here chose Thursday. Those that

I've been on Thursday the last couple of years (though if I'd seen Sky's schedule before December I wouldn't have come on the Thursday...)

didn't make it will probably be pleased to know that the interest in using Linux was phenomenal: at least an order of magnitude higher than last year. On Thursday and Friday we were busy throughout the day (Wednesday and Saturday are the quiet days at BETT). It was interesting to see that

Never tried Saturday, though one time I did try Wednesday some of the exhibitors hadn't finished getting their stands set up...

the resistance to using non-Microsoft products was very, very low - only one person that I spoke to said that they wouldn't consider Linux because of their existing commitment to Microsoft. The new MS licensing schemes are predictably unpopular and this is not helping RM; Connect version 3 will apparently be XP based and so schools wishing to remain with RM may

I didn't look too closely at the RM stand, but dosn't this mean that they were in effect advertising "vapourware"...

have to upgrade all their hardware to be XP capable at the same time as paying for an RM upgrade and XP licences.

All in all, a very successful show. I was particularly pleased to be told about two open-source school management information systems that were nearing public release. More to follow later...

Certainly in Devon these would probably need more selling to the LEA than to schools... -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763