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Schools could save 500M UKP a year by ditching Microsoft

by Simon at 09:12 11/05/05 (Blogs::Simon)

The Times Educational Supplement has an article reporting that BECTA (British Educational Communications and Technology Association, the Government’s ICT agency) has discovered that schools could save 50% of their ICT budget by moving away from Microsoft in favour of open source alternatives.

TES article is here.

Firstly, I think it is a welcome change to see this openly discussed in the UK at last.

Secondly, I foresee the familiar debate over the words "free software" being re-run (free as in speech, not free as in beer)

Thirdly, I hope this will galvanize the opposition to software patents.

I wonder what HMG will make of the report.
--
simon

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Schools could save 500M UKP a year by ditching Microsoft	Simon - 09:12 11/05/05
Re: Schools could save 500M UKP a year by ditching Microsoft	Hugo van der Sanden - 13:12 11/05/05
Hmm, interesting to look at these numbers in the light of the Bellamy article. You report "schools could save 50% of their ICT budget"; the TES article starts "Primary schools could cut their computer costs by nearly half" (my emphasis), and then at the end says "Average costs [...] were 24 per cent less per computer in secondaries using open source". Maybe they could use some of the savings to improve maths teaching. :) Hugo
Re: Schools could save between 250M and 500M UKP (approx) per year by ditching Microsoft	Simon - 13:29 11/05/05
Point. Note the not so subtle change of subject line for this comment. -- simon