Classroom Upgrade -recommendations ???

Qwerty?

Hi guys,

We are planning on buying 25 new computers for a classroom. They are used mainly for MS Office and Internet. Just wondering what OS would you recommend now. Should we go Vista, or stick with XP Professional. They more that likely won't be changed for at least another 6-7 years. (Or perhaps longer, the old computers we are replacing were upgraded from Win 95 to Win 98)

Thanks in advance.

Q.

-annex-

Microsoft ceased sales of Windows XP yesterday and will no longer be licencing it to OEM's so you'll likely have to go with with Vista. I'd be recommending Vista anyway, I've absolutely no problems with it.

Adam

Sorry, what?

You seem to be forgetting the thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of copies still in the system bundled on pc's waiting to be sold right now, and as software sold seperately. In fact, with that announcement, the price of XP will probably start to drop with stock clearances, so that's your answer in my opinion.

-annex-

Mirror wrote: »

Sorry, what?

You seem to be forgetting the thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of copies still in the system bundled on pc's waiting to be sold right now, and as software sold seperately. In fact, with that announcement, the price of XP will probably start to drop with stock clearances, so that's your answer in my opinion.

I'm not denying it's still available. I used the word "likely" as I'm presuming it's for a public school. In this case the deal will be done through Department of Education and depending on what deal they have with manufacturers, XP may or may not be an option. If for example they are buying with Dell, Vista is their only option (unless they go Vista Business and downgrade).

Adam

-annex- wrote: »

I'm not denying it's still available. I used the word "likely" as I'm presuming it's for a public school. In this case the deal will be done through Department of Education and depending on what deal they have with manufacturers, XP may or may not be an option. If for example they are buying with Dell, Vista is their only option (unless they go Vista Business and downgrade).

I see where you're coming from, but that's just what's stated on the website with Dell. If you actually call them it's fairly easy to convince them to give you XP regardless.

Try1ng

Would you consider open office instead of MS office? Save a packet and it seems to be getting great use.

Adam

Try1ng wrote: »

Would you consider open office instead of MS office? Save a packet and it seems to be getting great use.

+1

On top of which, it's layout and functions are very similar. You wouldn't get lost switching at all.

Anti

Open office is great, but its not for teaching kids how to use an office program. Imagine learning Open office first then going into a job and using office! Would be a nightmare. AFAIK there are even government grants for Office, or is it that office is sold alot cheaper if its for students? Have a check on www.microsoft.com there is bount to be a lot of info there. Dell will probably good idea of a place to buy from as they do cheap basic pc's perfect for what you need.

Adam

Also, if you go with Dell, haggle! They're known to drop prices even on a one to one customer basis, you're guaranteed to get a discount on bulk purchases.

Qwerty?

Thanks for all the replies. Its a Community school, but the Dept Of Ed. don't source these, it's up to each school to source and decide on the spec, and find the money from nowhere. I'm planning on using Open Office next year in my DCG classroom. But in the main computer room we teach ECDL, and afaik we have no choice but to use MS Office for this.

Back on the Vista/XP issue, I guess it would be probably cheaper to go XP, but in the long run, wouldn't that be a bad idea, considering, in a 6 months/a years time any student buying a computer, or any new computers we buy for other classrooms, will all have to be Vista??? and if Vista, what version???

Didn't think of Haggling with Dell, didn't think it would be an option. The only problem with Dell is the installation onto the network, suppose we could get around that.

Thanks.

snollup

As far as i know microsoft do deal for schools & colleges so approch them directly. I'm sure you'll find something on their website.

Snowbat

StarOffice 8 (based upon OpenOffice.org, with additional proprietary components) is free for Irish schools from the NCTE: http://www.softwarecentral.ie/Projects/StarOffice/

dulpit

If you consider that even now XP is becoming old fashioned imagine what it would be like in 4-5 years down the line... Vista ftw..

Overheal

From what I hear XP is still to be supported for up until 2012 so If you're planning to upgrade in 2015 or so, thats a bit of a stretch I would think. However, you would be saving yourself a fair amount of money by going with XP.

Capt'n Midnight

Qwerty wrote:

But in the main computer room we teach ECDL, and afaik we have no choice but to use MS Office for this.

FUD

http://openapp.ie:12080/ecdl - first hit in google

This programme is based on the manual "A practical Course in StarOffice 8", training for ECDL Syllabus 4 available from Blackrock Education Centre Publising - ISBN 0 9547901 0 3 - for €38.50/£29.50

or this
http://en.ecdlweb.org/index.php?title=Using_OpenOffice.org_Writer_2.0

at this stage even the Open Solaris varient belenix comes with a live CD version of openoffice so you don't need windows or linux or bsd

as for employeers , our company uses office for two reasons,
one a lot of the dB's use office for reports / data entry and the cost of office was small compared to the rest and very old versions are used
two OO wasn't mature enough at that point in time, now years later it would be the other way around , OO is commonly used to repair broken office documents

seriously most people don't use the advanced features of word/excel and the interface has changed yet again,TBH if somone couldn't switch between Lotus123 / Excel / Openoffice within a resonable time they probably would be difficult to train up on other packages.

Qwerty?

Thanks, Open Office is the way to go so. Didn't realise it could be used for ECDL. Great news, if I can convince the ECDL Teachers to use it.


After talking to the girl in Blackrock Ed Centre, Ubuntu may be the solution to our OS decision.

Any opinions on it?

Jonathan

Stay away from MS office 2007 anyway. The new ribbonUI is awful

dulpit

jmccrohan wrote: »

Stay away from MS office 2007 anyway. The new ribbonUI is awful

Not true, just needs some getting used to... Out of curiosity (i haven't seen it written anywhere) is this going to be primary or secondary school? Would it make more sense to have Windows, if it's being used as an educational device it would strike me as more sense to teach people on an OS that most people will have at home..

Jonathan

dulpit wrote: »

Not true, just needs some getting used to... Out of curiosity (i haven't seen it written anywhere) is this going to be primary or secondary school? Would it make more sense to have Windows, if it's being used as an educational device it would strike me as more sense to teach people on an OS that most people will have at home..

I would presume a secondary school if they are being thought the ECDL...

Shiny

jmccrohan wrote: »

Stay away from MS office 2007 anyway. The new ribbonUI is awful

Don't really know what you are talking about to be honest.

Did my entire final year project in Office 2007 and any time I forgot
my laptop and had to use Office 2003 in college I found it almost
unusable.

Office 2007 is an excellent package and the student version can be
had for around €100 or much less if you "look around".

Qwerty?

dulpit wrote: »

Not true, just needs some getting used to... Out of curiosity (i haven't seen it written anywhere) is this going to be primary or secondary school? Would it make more sense to have Windows, if it's being used as an educational device it would strike me as more sense to teach people on an OS that most people will have at home..

Its secondary. Perhaps the Windows OS would make sense as most students have it at home, but most students don't have MS Office, so Open Office would be great as they all have a copy.

I thought Ubuntu was very similar looking to Windows XP?

dulpit

Realistically if it's a school you want to provide the most up-to-date and "best" software, which at the moment is Vista & MS Office 2007... That's my opinion anyways...

BizzyLizzy

Qwerty? wrote: »

....

Back on the Vista/XP issue, I guess it would be probably cheaper to go XP, but in the long run, wouldn't that be a bad idea, considering, in a 6 months/a years time any student buying a computer, or any new computers we buy for other classrooms, will all have to be Vista??? and if Vista, what version???......

Windows 7 is on the way! Expected release date: end 2009 or early Jan 2010! :eek: