Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Ministry of Education from Brazil is buying 90, 000 Debian GNU Linux computers

[Tim Dobson]

A little bit delayed (I started replying, forgot about it, then today,
remembered.):

On 18/12/2007, Andy O'Brien <address@hidden> wrote:
> I really think that RM Will try and drag out MS based products for as
> long as then can. All their products are based around MS Systems and
> they really do not develop with cross platform support!

I agree that they *will* try to push systems they have prior
experience with over systems that they don't. But if you think about
it, RM is essentially a support company; none of their in-house
software is really useful without one of their support contracts.

Heres an indicator they are branching out a *little*, I'm not
suggesting they are making large steps, but it is a step
none-the-less.
http://www.rm.com/Primary/Products/product.asp?cref=PD1030046

Most people who know me, know I am not a fan of RM, I have had some
bad experiences with them, their networks are rubbish and their
technicians/sysadmins, in my experience, are not very adept.

> As far as I'M aware none or RM's own software (especially web based) is
> cross platform.

I do know what you mean about web-based stuff; RM easylink can be set
to reject anything which doesn't have an IE UA string. It also relies
on WebFolders, but you can still download stuff from it if you read
through the client-side VB script in the page source doing redirects
and change your UA string to IE.

I think RM (or a similar company) is likely to have the same monopoly,
what ever base OS is being used.

> I am guessing for this reason that their development costs for multi
> platform will be massive.

This is true. however the only real reason is because surrently they
do not develop cross platform. What RM does is: take MS stuff,
rebrands it, sticks a different GUI on it, pretends it is, better,
easier, cheaper etc. This obviously does not port well. I suspect they
will just rebrand and do the same to what ever the relevant bits of
Free Software are.

> This of course will end up costing schools more money. With the falling
> birth rate and the current state of most schools finances, I'm sure that
> such expensive new products would not have a high uptake.

Schools end up actually spending little on computers (hardware &
software) in my experience. The State schools I have been at, have
almost entirly relied on Tesco Computers for Schools vouchers (RM
monopolized).

>I Have to keep a remote desktop machine in the server room to do most
of my jobs!

No Kidding. I totally understand.

-- 
www.dobo.urandom.co.uk
----
If each of us have one object, and we exchange them, then each of us
still has one object.
If each of us have one idea, and we exchange them, then each of us now
has two ideas.   -  George Bernard Shaw