Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-edu (92 mails)

["Mark Evans" <mpe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've been having all sorts of trouble with the
attitude of people at our LEA.

First was that for PLASC returns they have
decided to use RM Securenet which requires
MSIE and associated junk. They got upset when
I told them "sorry, we don't support that
software".

Then we have the situation of the latest
replacement for the SIMS STAR module "superSTAR".
For which Capita have decided to base around
Microsoft .NET. (Assuming they don't change 
their mind yet again.)
They recommend workstations with Windows XP,
P4/AMD Athlon XP, 1/2G memory, 10G free hard
disk, 17" monitor. 
To meet the kind of specs which the LEA are
giving to us would mean spending up to 20 
thousand pounds for little, if any, improvement.

My overall feeling is that various people
have completly lost the plot and really 
don't understand that the priorities for 
schools are other than having the latest
and greatest toys to play with.

Let alone that this spec is completly
overblown for a machine to lookup data
on database. Sometimes also to do some
wordprocessing, email and web browsing.

The only way of using something else would be
if we could also persuade the majority of 
secondary schools in Devon to drop SIMS.

What are other peoples' experiences?

-- 
Mark Evans
St. Peter's CofE High School
Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109
Fax: +44 1392 204763