But Microsoft -- which could lose considerable revenue if large numbers of schools embraced open source -- lost little time in attacking the study, which was commissioned and published by the British Educational Communications and Technology Association (Becta).
The report involved 15 schools which used open source software and 33 that didn't. It concluded that the cost of a primary school computer running open source software was half that of one running proprietary software, while in secondary schools an open source PC was 20 percent cheaper.
Stephen Uden, Microsoft's education relations manager, claimed that this sample size was too small to draw firm conclusions from. Uden also defended Microsoft against the charge that schools that choose its software are getting worse value than those that take the open source path.
"Obviously costs are an important part of this. But most head teachers are interested in quality. We spend more time looking at better learning for kids," said Uden. He pointed out that three of the primary schools involved were supported by a secondary school, giving them access to valuable support -- something he claimed distorted the findings.
Becta did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The 24-page report looked at three areas -- technical infrastructure, administration and management, and curriculum software -- and overall delivered a mixed verdict about what open source software offers today.
The report found that open source software was generally superior as an operating system on both servers and PCs. But the schools involved were split as to whether open source applications were better than their proprietary counterparts. One teacher reported that some colleagues welcomed StarOffice, but others refused to use it and stuck with Word. At another school, open source software had been installed on laptops alongside proprietary alternatives, but appeared to be never used.
Becta described the position on content-specific open source software as "weaker", as the schools involved in the study were only using a very small range of open source teaching applications.
Despite this, OpenForum Europe -- which supports the use of open source software in business -- has hailed Becta's report.
"This report underlines the massive opportunity that exists for all schools to get the best value for money from their IT budgets," said Mike Banahan, director of OpenForum Europe. "The advent of Open Source Software solutions in education opens up the whole UK education market for the first time in a decade to competitive choice, removing the inevitability of lock-in."
The full report is available onBecta's Web site.
Talkback
And so it starts. To paraphrase George Lucas, 'School Wars' has begun.......Microsoft knows it, I know it, and I am also sure everyone else will recognise this underlying truth: If you can control the learning concepts of school children so that they believe that the Microsoft Windows is the only computer operating system in existence, then you have 'locked in' your future customers. You do this by ensuring no other OSs reach the classroom, or in other words, you create a Windows monopoly on software education. It doesn't matter whether whether your product is good or bad, open or closed source...you have simply secured your future profits.
If a child is not allowed to explore the amazing diversity of software outside the Microsoft Empire, then they are disadvantaged in today's world; especially since the evidence suggests that all of Asia and South America is moving rapidly to Linux based software and our future engineers must be able to link with them. For a Microsoft 'brainwashed' adult even to look outside of the Windows world becomes difficult if not impossible and various governments have recognised that it must almost be forced. But the gains are then enormous.
Let us be in no doubt, Microsoft is going to throw everything in its armoury (legal, patents, OEM's, discounts, whispering campaigns, FUD, ...... we haven't seen anything yet) to prevent the takeup of Linux and FOSS in schools...it knows its future is ultimately going to be won or destroyed in those locations.
I can't believe this, Microsoft are well known for producing extremely unscientific reports using every trick in the book to try and lean the results in their favour (including using ridiculously small sample sizes).
And now they take an independant report and 'rubbish' it stating for one that the sample size is too small. Why is it ok to have a small sample size in a Microsoft funded report but not in an independant report?
It is obvious Microsoft will continually lie through their teeth if helps maintain their market share!
Screwed up title, ZDNet. The report's about Open Source and non-Microsoft options, not about Microsoft so of course Microsoft's marketing complains about it.
As long as they can brib..err, 'coax' officials to use windows eventually, street noise doesn't matter.
Yes, they can give the appearance of 'discounting' their licenses and make the civil servants appear to make smart purchases and then make up the difference in other ways.
There's a reason m$'s revenues are rising despite these 'bargains' that govts are supposedly getting these days.
From what i have read and belive, open source might be cheaper in the short term, but in the long term, has the potential to end up as just as expensive or even MORE expensive the MS solutions, because of the traning that has to be done. I feel that linux and various alternative open-source solutions are nowhere near as intuituve and easy to use as MS based products, which would cause problems. Ever tried teaching your nan how to use windows? Difficult, but not impossible. Think she's find linux a bit easier maybe?!?!
What about the benefit of student participation?
Open source software gives kids the opportunity to become involved in developing the software they use. True, this is more relevant in high schools. This is good both for the kids that get involved, and if the use of open source software becomes more widely used in schools, it would also be good for open source, as many talented kids would learn how to participate. High school kids have plenty of spare time they can use to contribute.
The MS spokesman said that the study was biased because some primary schools had access to support from secondary schools. That's wrong, of course. ALL primary schools can get support from secondary school students if they would organize. They would be able to get better support if some of the secondary school students are actively involved in development of teh software. There's a threshold to be surpassed, but eventually it would be much better for teachers when they can ask students to make them the software that does what they want instead of telling them what they can and what they cannot do with MicroSoft products. Studentsw can even get credit for creating tools for their teachers to work with, or for customizinf existing tools for the school environment.
The idea of education is to 'educate' people how to live in the real world. The vast majority of the IT real world, that is 'desktops' is Windows and MS Applications. These are what you need to know if you want a job in the real world. Education must therefore include use of MS systems.
Laurence Leach>That's what Microsoft would like you to believe, yes. In actual fact, most organisations adopting Linux see the number of support calls reduce massively because it is more secure, more reliable and doesn't get viruses. The reality is that Linux may be slightly more expensive in the very short term because of training costs, although interfaces like KDE and Gnome are so good these days they're pretty intuitive for most users, and costs reduce massively in the long term because of reduced support costs, open standards removing the reliance on a single company (single point of failure), no more forced upgrades, the list goes on. Plus of course you get the (optional) warm feeling of supporting your local community by buying it and the support from a local company, rather than throwing money down a drain in Redmond.
Personally I think putting open source in schools is a wonderful idea, both for the schools today and the kids tomorrow. Let them grow up in a world where people share and are open about things, rather than one where people guard their knowledge jealously and litigate wildly against anyone that tries to take that away.
I worked selling computers into educational establishments and supporting them several years ago.
Any claims that we should be using Microsoft (or any other) software in schools "because they will be using them in real life) are totally bogus.
One of the worst things that has happened to school computing is the demise of the more specialist computing platforms in favour of an office tool.
What we have lost is the specialist educational environment with tools designed for and by educators, not by any old failed games programmer trying to make a swift buck.
Computing in schools used to be inspirational. These days it is bland.
Whilst the use of office tools and modern operating systems is important in education, the reality is these skills transfer easily between platforms. In any case, the version of MS Office used in schools today will be significantly different from the one they use when they start their working life.
IT related jobs require skills that extend far beyond the use of Office tools and the percentage of jobs that require these skills is significant. By restricting our kids exposure to a limited, sanitised, view of technology we are doing them a huge disservice.
Open Source provides a huge opportunity to address this. Through Open source kids can get access to real-world techologies such as SQL, LDAP, file sharing, XML, C++ and Java development, Web/PHP development, etc.
Whilst much of this is available through Windows, it is usually out of reach of most schools and/or is in a santised and highly proprietary form that is not suitable for education (e.g. Frontpage).
I really think most people are not really listening to Microsoft anymore. The educational market was dominated by Apple for many years before Microsoft decided to seriously target it. A lot of excellent educational software was never ported to microsoft.
The TCO arguments might hold up for school administration, but not for the students, because of several assumptions in the TCO argument.
1) TCO presumes that the uses is already compentent in windows and it applications and the cost of retraining is a considerable expense. Younger students are not proficient or accustomed to anything and have no problem adapting to the difference between Windows, linux and Macos. My 8-year-old does it all the time.
2) School budgets are usually tight and the hardware is seldom cutting edge. Every new version of Windows generally requires an investment in new hardware. Most school systems use a seven year deoreciation schedule, and many shcool systems use computers in thier labs that are over 10 years old. This is no problem for linux, as it can be tailored to lesser hardware requirements. The minimum hardware for a linux webserver is a 16 Mhz 386. The bare minimum to support a web browser is 50 Mhz 486. Most K-6 grade students will not benefit from an Office suite, but Microsoft will benefit in profits and in the long term from indoctrination of the students.
3) Quality is a subjective term. One argument I have heard against Open Source is the old 'you get what you pay for' adage. It costs less for a software publisher to make copies of software than for an individual to do the same.
Most of Microsoft's TCO arguments try to follow a similar reasoning.. "Our software is good because people pay lots of money for it" just doesn't ring true the people doing the paying are not given the choice. Most schools are paid for by taxpayers.
4) Administration costs assume that linux requires the same level of administration as Windows. Due to the simple and robust security model on linux, combined with built-in
capabilities that are expensive add-ons in the Windows worldview, less expensive hardware can be used as graphics terminals or even as web clients which translates into very low administration overhead, lower cost per station, allowing more access for the students to the computers.
Now for a clarification. Open Source does not mean no cost. While most open source software is free gratis, sone is not. When you buy a license from a software publisher, you do not own that copy. You do not have the freedom to alter it, even for your own use. Open software give you the freedom and the means to add you changes, corrections, and enhancements to the software as long as you honor the open source status of the original work and you make the source code for your changes available to those that you give copies to.