Hi all, On me. I'm Ian Lynch, the geek in the suit who came in late and left early. I run ZMSL an education consultancy and my wife runs IRLcomputer systems Ltd winner of the Midlands Region of the Parcelforce/IBM small business awards and down to the last 25 in the Daily Telegraph best new business competition. I help schools with grant applications, matched funding issues and I have done consultancy work for a number of IT companies such as Acorn, Hitachi and Psion on marketing to education (Ok, in Acorn's case this is probably not the best thing to put on a CV!). I have been Project Director of an Education Action Zone and we have an expressed wish by the New Horizons Virtual EAZ to do some trials with Linux. These will be publicised in October through the VEAZ conference which was attended by almost half the EAZs last year. I am acting as IT consultant to a PLC bidding to take over two OFSTED failed LEAs and I have built thin client and Linux strategies into the proposals. I have one link with a venture capital type company that could result in a Linux based device going into every household but I have signed NDAs so that's all I can say. (Given the problems with tech stocks at the moment its probably only 50/50) I think we need a strategy. Something like By June 2001 Ensure all technical aspects of 5 reference sites are secure representing primary and secondary sectors. By September 2001 Ensure primary and secondary reference sites are being used. Produce definitive cost comparison between Linux solution and equivalent Windows one. Agree presence at Technology Colleges Conference and VEAZ Conference. Prioritise software development to cover all NC. (Control technology and data-logging applications required). Use contacts at the DfEE, TC Trust and BECTa to raise awareness and push for Central Government support by reference to innovative schools in Government programmes. Look for support from Federation of Small Businesses using the rationale that diversion of software budgets into services in the small business sector is good for the economy. Plan combined presence at BETT. Seek allies such as SUN to help offset the costs. By October agree first major publication in TES. Offer stories to Micromart, PCW, Computer Shopper and other relevant journals. Publicise at VEAZ conference. By January 2002 ensure all core National Curriculum requirements can be covered using open source. Achieve managed service provider status with BECTa and significantly undercut all the Windows solutions on price. Launch preview of Open source SIMS replacement. By February 2002 Target of 100 identified schools using Linux thin clients encourage membership of OSIE to act as reference sites. By September 2002 at least one Technology College mainly Linux across the whole site. Look for TV exposure via Tomorrow's World, Channel 4 and other technology focussed TV. I believe most of this is achievable but please feel free to take it apart or add your own bits. On Microsoft. Initially we have to live with them. Few schools are going to go all Linux straight away anyway but if we get a foot in the door we should be able to show far better value and that will do the trick. On finance We need to optimise government funding strategies to help the cause. If anyone has any older machines or knows any companies likely to be throwing these out I can get matched funding for them and pay for thin client servers. Indeed, any schools getting rid of older PCs to upgrade to Win2000 can give them to me and I'll find homes for them as thin clients to Linux servers. Take this scenario for an EAZ. Most EAZs can get up to 250k against sponsorship in kind. Most are only getting about 10% of that. If we take say 30 P100s and value them at 100 ukp each, that's 3000ukp in matched funding. Use that to build a server and you are not far from an IT room. This would cost around 25k ukp on conventional PCs. The government has set targets for pupil computer ratios and specifically ear-marked NGfL money to meet those targets. We can help them :-). Also EAZs are desperate to raise sponsorship as much for politically symbolic reasons as for the money. Sorry for the waffle, if I had more time it would have been shorter. IanL WindowsME. Isn't ME a sort of disease that makes you slow tired and listless? Oh I see ;-).