I'm going to use a few examples of what I personally have dealt with.
There are two types of things we buy for Schools - Services or Equipment.
Equipment
With equipment it's pretty easy to see if you are getting value, simply go some where else with your specifications and get a quote. I recently got half a dozen quotations to prove not only I was getting good value but to make sure my normal supplier gives the best price.
Services
This is the really annoying part, once you begin talking to some one selling you a service. They have a habit of telling you your current method is wrong and you have to be crazy not to buy their service. I've spent a lot of hours chatting and meeting salesman telling me "cloud" or "system" is the best thing since sliced bread. If you meet those who are not pro Microsoft at all, they will insist that M$ is rubbish and you don't need it at all. Having spent a lot of time with one company in particular - RealSmart. When I met their rep he insisted their system mixed with Google Apps would remove the need to use anything made by Microsoft. We could scrap our servers tomorrow, the impact on anything would be nothing to minimal. This was coming from a previous Head of Music who left Education to work for RealSmart.
In my job I have no choice but to think of the WHAT IFs, I have to and really can't pretend everything is hunky dorey. We currently save a lot of data and our biggest users are simply 4GB to 12GB per Student (movies and art). Now I simply can't ignore those Students because that work is critical.
You also have to remember that switching over, is not just changing the technology. It's training for Staff that has to be planned. Staff only get a small amount of days a year to actually train, this must include the usual curriculum changes and improvements. Which would mean you have to go step by step in any kind of change.
So the Salesman
We've all had them right, very arrogant that their way is the correct way. They have spent five minutes at your School, with your staff and Students. We don't have a majorly behaviour problem, as a result we can have relatively nice equipment. What about Schools where behaviour is a serious issue?
We generally don't have time to train our staff, change things easily etc. So for us we cant simply change over night.
This is something salesman do not care about, regardless how much they try to be your best friend or believe in their own service/products. They want your cash. I have yet to sign up to any product where once they sold it to us, they constantly made sure we was okay. Sometimes you may get that call 6 month in to a contract or 12 months but lets face it - they only want our money. They generally will deal with teachers who don't understand the whole big picture of School IT. I don't remember the last time I ever dealt with a salesman who actually sat down and made me feel like they were caring about the School above their own cash income. This is the major difference between YOU and THEM. I have to care about the School IT, the staff and Students. I want perfection, I want it to work not just for today but for tomorrow. I don't want slow, unreliable or change to create a headache for the users. It's far too easy for a salesman to come up with reasons why you don't change. They never consider behaviour, time or staff capabilities. Not every teacher is on the same wave length and from my own point - we still have our day to day tasks to complete. We are not able to keep al equipment under the age of 5 years - we struggle to keep it below 7 and was previous consistently 8-12 years old.
Anywhere Access
A personal point of view I love the idea of Cloud and mobile devices. Having anywhere access to everything is something we will reach one day, we are currently not far off. One of the major problems we have though is I still don't use my phone or tablet to produce a mass amount of work. This isn't because the technology isn't quite available, it's because it's far too expensive to make that technology work for me. I would love to walk home, plug in a device and type away.
So what is holding us back if we really think about it? Why do salesman have little clue as to the big picture of why Schools don't switch over now? What about those salesman who have previous experience in IT?
- Server storage
- Internally installed/hosted software
- Training
- Costs implications
- Broadband/networking
- Time to switch
This is actually the easiest part to deal with, we have roughly 60% of all our data storage being used for small Office files. Unfortunately there is that 40% remaining that is not standard small files. We have a film department where the largest files for a dozen Students actually reaches over 10GB each. Then we have to think about the remaining film files which are an average of 4GB. Can we imagine downloading those large files and saving through broadband every day?
Software
We currently use SIMs.net and we would have to consider this being hosted externally which is a more expensive option. There is also other packages of software that departments rely on from reading, ICT, Maths, English, Science and CAT. We did attempt only within 24 months ago in looking to App alternatives but we didn't find replacements for every software and some that we did find was incredibly poor. As a result of "extra" costs required to getting some different/new software this goes back to cost implications.
Training
No matter which system we choose we have to train staff, if this is altering how they save, open programs, using the software - pretty much every day tasks. This is a huge undertaking and considering there is a limitation of time - when do staff get all this training? how many years would it take?
Cost Implications
The main reason people go cloud services and scrapping Microsoft is to cut costs but are we really cutting costs. If we switched from Office 365 we have to train staff - time and money. If we walked away from self hosted SIMs we would have to pay for something else or pay for Capita to host it - more costs. If we look to remove any piece of software that relies on Microsoft, again we are talking more costs.
If we keep Microsoft servers in any way, we are looking at costs. Windows Servers, last I checked - are not free and I doubt very highly they will ever be free for Schools/Education. One day our current OS servers will have to be upgraded, updated - costs. If we go for externally hosted solutions even for our servers that creates a more reliance on broadband and - more costs.
Broadband/Networking
When we upgrade our network here, we have done so only once in 10 years. Our previous network was 100MB and now the majority is 1GB. At the moment it's far too costly for Schools to switch over 1GB broadband. Data is crucial, regardless of what some say - it is.
A lot of Schools have spent a fortune upgrading their internal networks to 1GB>10GB while broadband is still struggling behind on 100MB.
Although we are currently looking at 200MB, I have already asked the question on cost implications of going 1GB. The good news - it's possible. We would how ever be talking about 45% cost increase on our current £15,000 a year broadband charges.
Time to Switch
When do we perform this switch, spend the time working out the niggles making everything work and making the system live ready for training.
I've spoken to a lot of Schools and those that have gone "externally" in some way have done so - cautiously and not everything. In fact most of them have still kept the majority of their internal systems intact.
IT Technicians often get told they are too negative or hard to change. Problem is we see technology for what it is, a day to day marvel but taken with caution. I refuse to live in the clouds, because I have seen the nightmare of switching over without a mass amount of testing.
I mentioned RealSmart at the top which was supposed to do everything and walking away from Microsoft was easy (said the guy with his expensive MacBook). This is why it's crucial to listen to a salesman but never take his word for it. See the evidence, see the proof, see what other Schools are doing. There is a reason Business's don't change quickly nor overnight. If a Business has a system that fails, that is ££££ thrown out the door. Although Schools wont lose so much money they will lose grades and results. Students can't afford to lose learning time and teachers can't lose teaching time. These are paramount to a successful School.
I'm often told that teachers must focus on teaching, likewise with the Union shouting at the Government about.
So the above isn't about what's stopping us, its more about being cautious and thinking for the entire School's big picture. I do believe we all should look at services and solutions to see if they fit the School but for us, at the moment we are simply not ready to do this. Having already attempted RealSmart with Google Apps, it's not the one for us.
There is an old saying though - if it's not broke - don't fix it.
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