Vista, Office 2007 get thumbs down from UK schools tech advisor

Stan Beer
Monday, 15 January 2007 18:31

Your IT - Home IT

High risk, high cost, lack of interoperability and a lack of need have been cited as major reasons why UK schools should avoid upgrading to Windows Vista and Office 2007 in a new report from a respected British Government technology advisory body.

The 20 page report "Microsoft Vista and Office 2007, Interim Report with Recommendations on Adoption and Deployment" was authored by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) and released late last week. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the report recommends in no uncertain terms that schools should steer clear of both of Microsoft's new flagship products for the time being.

For Microsoft, this is particularly bad news because by the estimation of Becta, the combined cost of deploying Vista and Office 2007 throughout UK schools, not including graphics cards for Vista's Aero interface, would be around £327 million (US$643 million), much of which would go into the software company's pockets. However, if the advice of Becta is heeded that won't happen.

According to the report, while the enhancements in Vista add value, they do not justify its early deployment in UK schools. While acknowledging that Vista has key advantages over Windows XP in areas such as security and access, the report states: "A comprehensive features analysis was carried out on Vista and the results confirmed that there were no ‘must have’ features."

According to the report, many of the features touted in Vista, such as IE7 and Windows Media Player are freely available without the need to upgrade from Windows XP. Others, such as Bitlocker drive encryption, are not in widespread use in the education sector.

Another particularly worrying point made in the report concerns the value of Aero. "The costs versus the benefits of the Aero interface are questionable, since most ICT-based teaching and learning now takes place in applications (browsers, curriculum tools and so on) not at the operating-system level," the report states.