[Wolves] Times Ed - "Ditching Microsoft can save millions"

[Andy Wootton]

This is the title of today's Times Educational Supplement front page story.

BECTA says that primary schools could save 49% of costs and secondary 
schools 24%, by using open source software.

They compared 15 schools using OSS with 33 using "paid-for software". I 
suspect the results may be slightly optimistic because the 15 techies 
clearly had a clue.
How strange that the conclusion should be so different to when Microsoft 
pays consultants to do an independent TCO study.

The Microsoft spokesperson said that schools only pay a fifth of the 
rates companies pay for MS Office so I assume the savings can be 
multiplied by 5 for everyone else ;-)

This could be a good time to help local schools do the decent thing.

Woo