British schools say no thanks to Vista and Office 2007

Filed under: Business, Microsoft, Freeware, Open Source

British schools say no thanks to Vista and Office 2007

by Romeo Wahed Jan 14th 2008

In case you were rooting for Vista to take over the world, we've got bad news. The agency that takes care of all things technology in regards to education in the U.K., Becta, states in a press release that the upgrade to Vista should be "avoided."

Considering that free and open source operating systems and office suites do things about as well if not better than Microsoft products, especially if price is taken into consideration, this is hardly surprising. Becta stated that a primary reason is incompatibility - Office 2007's lack of support for the ODF format as well as the new Office format (those blasted DOCX files) - which doesn't make it a hot contender.

The release recommends that Vista should be considered an option only if there are any institution-wide ICT provisions being planned. Even so, that doesn't sound too good when you have schools on a budget trying to get the most out of their money. And when it comes to the bottom line, the Microsoft option looks downright grim.

The beginning of a trend? Perhaps. It's hard to beat free.

[via InformationWeek]

Tags: microsoft, odf, office, opensource, windows

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Todd said 11:27AM on 1-14-2008

Way more than a trend. I am not aware of any academic institution that runs Windows for its infrastructure. Plus, all the students use Mac hardware as clients. With an entire generation growing up on Open Source, no wonder MS has been regulated to powering shopping carts:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/14/microsoft-and-mediacart-prepping-self-checkout-carts-with-rfid/

Mysterius said 11:57AM on 1-14-2008

Macs are open source?

;)

Eddiettr said 11:44AM on 1-14-2008

However much it may sound like I'm rooting for Microsoft (which I'm not, I run primarily OSX at home), I think this is a terrible idea. Windows is still by a long way the most used operating system in the World, and even more so in the business world. It is essential that the education system keeps up to date with the rest of the World's systems.

waccoon said 6:11AM on 1-23-2008

Just wanted to point out that trends change so fast. I was still learning Pascal on a DOS box while I was in high school...

Eddiettr said 11:48AM on 1-14-2008

at Todd - Here in the UK you'll find that all schools and colleges use Windows for their infrastructures. It may be different in the US, but here all educational servers are running Server 2003 and as for students all using Macs, I am the only person I know with a Mac. Every one else I know runs Windows. Not always through choice, but I have still yet to find anyone running an OS other than XP or Vista

Eddiettr said 11:49AM on 1-14-2008

nick said 2:06PM on 1-18-2008

Hee hee. I use Vista at home, and all that happens is Windows Explorer crashes. Constantly. No joke. We use Macs at school and they are much better, and use Virtual PC, or if you are mad, try running Vista on you Mac

Mac -> Vista = :)
Vista -> Mac = :)

Why can't Windows run Mac?

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