Re: [Fsfe-uk] [ALUG] Microsoft and schools (fwd)

[Philip Hunt]

On Friday 05 December 2003  5:51 pm, Alex Hudson wrote:
> On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 17:36, ian wrote:
> > It will not cover all things. I should think the reality is that OEM
> > Windows and MS Office are by far the biggest revenue generators.
>
> That's absolutely correct.
>
> > Its in all the presenters interests to show
> > massive savings. MS (aren't we generous) BECTA (aren't we wonderful for
> > saving all this taxpayers money) I bet the reality in savings are
> > nowhere near the hype in practise but we shall see.
>
> Indeed. Wasn't this kerfuffle all about MS price rises? (As in, their
> new licensing schemes?). It would not surprise me if most, if not all,
> of the saving was basically an offset against the increased licensing
> costs. Or that UK Schools have agreed to licence more software, but at a
> better discount - i.e., spending 60M instead of 50M, but getting 70M
> worth of software: there's a 10M saving right there!

The Becta page <http://www.becta.org.uk/corporate/press_out.cfm?id=3099>
says it's up to individual schools to buy what they want, so no such
deal has been made.

The savings are 20%-37% of previous prices and should amount to GBP 50 
million over 3 years, according to the BBC. Taking a middle figure of 28.5% 
discount implies:

- MS licenses at old costs were 175 million
- at new costs, MS licenses will be 125 million

Almost all of these license will be for MS office, I imagine. Therefore,
by switching to Open Office, schools would presumably save another 125 
million over three years.

-- 
Phil Hunt, address@hidden