Microsoft puts blind faith in schools

Some users have been testing Office 2007, the latest state of play? 
All the current installation are being roled back to 2003, and all current and future plans to upgrade shelved.
It broke everything, including the big one with a three letter name.

Most businesses use Microsoft, some might wish it were different, and it may well become different but for now its not. Therefore the software I would most like to see used in Schools is Microsoft as that's what people will need to know when they leave education. The issue is not with Microsoft its with the education system to provide a balanced programme to determine the best education outcome. When it comes to technology the education sector has always been a commercial market. If people want that to change its down to government. if there is a belief that any other software provider is willing to provide free/open services then why aren't they? Its not just about saying here's the software, if its going into education then there will need to be support programmes etc. in place. I am pretty confident if this was being offered it would be taken up and if Microsoft had to they would adjust. The other problem would be finding teachers who know enough to teach it all, which is highly unlikely! This is probably one of the biggest arguments against open source / interoperability and that's lack of commonality and understanding. Having said all that I am all for finding a way around this and democratising the software market even more. Once the geeks leave this space and let the users understand and embrace it, it might well work and then we will see a change in approach to education.

Why should Microsoft change their own file formats ? Why should Microsoft be crippled with EC competition laws ? Why should Microsoft have to limit its own software to allow the other vendors a chance to take market share ?? 

Surely its up to the competition to produce something we actually want to use, not stop a company innovating and doing its own thing ! Its not difficult to open or "save as" a microsoft doc/xls etc, so whats the big fuss ?

They should not be using just MS software. Most web development these days is on the LAMP platform.

And Mac sales are going through the roof.

And anyway, the MS software they learn at school can be completely different when they leave school. I feel sorry for kids who have learnt office 2003 at school to then have to use office 2007 when in the workplace.

Much better to use Open Office which is consistent and follows the OS stretegy of small, incremental improvements.

I would suggest that you broaden your view a bit more. By your explanation, the only things kids would need to learn in school is MS concerning computers, the 100m dash for sports, and Aesop's Fables for literature.
Not bad choices, of course, but there is more out there.
Also, the issue is not MS in schools, but Vista in schools. Schools are using a lot of XP and 2000 for servers, and that's MS right there.
But MS wants people to think that Vista is selling like hot cakes, except that there is no data to back that wishful thinking. So MS has resorted to a happy-sounding fluff piece without any numbers, which is about the best admission of non-uptake one can hope for.
Schools should be places where inquisitive minds are formed. Schools should ideally expose students to MS products, but also OS X, UNIX, the various flavors of Linux and, for those who are really interested, some older OSes (Warp comes to mind). That would be broad.
Of course, that is also not realistic, so we'll just have to put up with XP.
But crowing for Me II is a non-starter. The shunned OS is being avoided in droves, to the point that MS has publicly stated that the next OS is on the burner and will be coming out sooner than planned for.
Which means that, if MS doesn't royally screw that one up with invasive DRM (actually, ANY DRM) and truckloads of system-weighting stuff nobody asked for and nobody but the market majors want, then Vista will shortly become nothing but a billion-dollar stain on Microsoft's records.
So I see no reason to advocate going for Vista in schools, which is what schools are actively not doing anyway.

Yet again, the QUANGOs have keeled over at the slightest threat of having to actually think about something.

What is Windows used to teach in school IT?

What do I know about it? Well I have five kids.1&2 are both all groiwed up working well in sales and engineering, 

#3 is still in Uni (its not.. oh now actually it *is* rocket science!) 

#4 is about to go into 6th form.
#5 complains about the XP based laptops in her school, their extreme slowness (when compared with the P3/550 running Ubuntu she uses at home) and tendancy to be "out of order" as often as not.

Alll my kids have been more computer savvy than their teachers from day 1!) They usually install build their own PC and installl the O/S themselves at age 10! And Ubuntu is certainly a lot less hassle in install than, for example, XP.

And all they have been taughti between age 5 and 19 is how to log in, click a few icons, and perform a few basic office tasks. These things do not teach anything about computing or operating systems, but more common GUI/Office operations, which don't differ widely between Windows, Mac or typical Linux installs. OpenOffice does the same basic thing as Microsofts offering, and in many ways does it better. Linux observes open interoperability standards. Linux can, subject to the law on the land, be freely tailored and modified to meet any requirement.

Linux is cheaper, more reliable, has better security, is not providing positive reinforcement for a convicted monopoly, is not advertising to / brainwashing our children.

Other than that Linux (I'm thinking Ubunto LTS with OpenOffice/Seamonkey) will offer no jollies or brown bags to the purchasing consortia bosses,I can't think of a reason why it is not the de-facto standard in our schools.



why is it we complain about the rising taxes and costs but nothings done, For every computer in the school/office you need to pay for a licence for windows and then one for office which arn't cheep and with more computers in a school thats a lot of money, also every update with micro(not)soft will cost you money aswell. why hasn't schools looked into the open source area were things are completley free. switching from microsoft office to open office will save up to £100 per computer alone then its the same with windows, switch to something like unbuntu (any linux) which is the same again, with both these you get updates for life, they are 100000000% more efficent secure. and best think no viruses. why do you think most servers run linux?

.doc is about as universal / standard as it gets. having worked in U.K college I.T. since 1999 I have met 1000+ teachers and lecturers and every single one of them can open the .doc format. Im yet to meet one that can open an .odf file. Also anybody that thinks pdf is a good way of sending things to people is out of their mind. Most of our staff have never heard of Acrobat, and the older ones struggle to understand the point and demand it given to them in .doc (quite rightly in my opinion). Given that most linux distributions have open office (which can open .doc) and you can get a word viewer which 99% of our users have no need for given they have word either on their mac or pc (we have no linux users) some EC department demanding that odf be adopted clearly has no idea of the "real world" tm. If you want a standard the world already has one. word 97-2003 .doc FOOL!

The quangos are quite happy to tell schools to use open document standards.

But I wonder how many of them have a linux computer in their office, or typed their reports on anything other than Office?

It is a sad truth that school IT lessons do not teach students anything. Therefore, the only use in a school having computers is that they are a productivity tool available for pupils. The pupils will want to use Office, because everyone uses Office. So why get anything else?

Incidentally, I bet you all know which suite I am referring to... and I haven't used the "M" word! 

This is as silly as forcing children to run Linux on their Ipods, just so they don't get stuck using propriety standards!