On Wednesday 19 December 2001 11:43, Mark Evans wrote:
I think a Linux thin client running Star Office and a web browser with flash support would be capable of providing the 80% mentioned above. This would free up resources for some specialist machines for which (at the moment at any rate) the only option is for specialist Windows based applications. What
Problem is that here the requirement with Prodesktop is to be able to use it with a class group and with Kudos for an entire year group. (The latter within a fairly short time period)
Quite a few of these specialised Windows based might need to be used by quite a lot of people.
Effectivly there are 3 catagories a) the general office/web browser/email stuff b) software which is specialised but used only in certain departments. Possibly driving specific hardware. c) specialised software which needs to be used by large numbers of people at once.
There dosn't appear to be an easy answer to the last catagory.
I think there is. Have one room which they can book out and use - after all that's pretty much the situation im ost schools now. Have many thin clients all over the place for a) and a few specialised machines for b). If people did this, the sheer volume of take up of the OSS stuff would make it very likely that the b) and c) apps would be ported within a couple of years. The model I propose is long term affordable and sustainable and gets the pupil:computer ratio towards 1:1.
Also the amount of usage isn't the be all and end all, Kudos typically sits idle on our system most of the year.
is required is a management perspective in IT that takes a critical approach to the prioritising and deployment of resources. Where ICT is concerned there is rarely the experience or technical knowledge in the decision makers to make good strategic decisions in this respect.
This is not just a problem with schools, LEA's can be just as bad.
Sometimes worse :-)
One thing I frequently end up complaining about is that software purchasing decisions are often left up to teaching staff. Who assume that just because it is easy to use on their home machine it will be easy to deploy on a network combined with not knowing anything about software licencing.