Microsoft having a tough time in British schools

Microsoft could be losing a hundred million dollars in Vista sales thanks to a British government agency.

Becta (The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency) is the organisation which advises schools and colleges in the country about buying technology. They�ve had several run-ins with Microsoft over the past year, including producing an official report that suggested schools should not upgrade to Windows Vista.

Schools are a potentially huge market for Microsoft because they house so many computers. There are 22,093 primary schools (for ages 5-11) and 4,172 secondary schools (for ages 11-18) in Britain. (These figures don�t include privately-run schools.) Given Microsoft�s pricing policy, if they persuaded every school in the country to buy Vista for its computers, they�d take in well over $100 million.

The Becta report ranked each feature of Vista for how important and useful it would be for schools. It said none of the new features were �must haves�, and only 60% of the features fell into the �should have� or �could have� categories. In the remaining 40%, the agency felt either the feature didn�t offer any real use to schools, or it was too early to tell.

The report also found that only about 6% of computers in schools could run Vista with the Aero graphics feature turned on. 39% could run Vista with Aero switched off, while 55% would likely not be high-spec enough to run it at all. If every school that needed to bought new machines to run Vista, the hardware bill would top $200 million.

It�s not clear how much effect the report has had on Vista sales in British schools. Microsoft has said that �more and more schools are upgrading to Windows Vista and Office 2007 as they increasingly recognize the benefits of embracing technology to transform teaching and learning.� But they haven�t provided any sales figures which � given how quick they�ve been to talk up overall sales � suggests things aren�t going well.

Becta also said many schools thought Microsoft�s licensing for educational establishments was unfair. Schools who buy Microsoft software have to pay a variable fee based on how many computers they have that are capable of running the operating system or program in question, not how many they actually want to install it on.

The deals also only allow schools to subscribe for a set period of time. There�s no option to pay for permanent use of the software in the same way home users do.

It�s quite a change of heart for Becta. In the past they�ve actually been accused of being too biased towards Microsoft. There�s been a long-running debate between those who say schools should use cheaper alternatives such as open-source software, and those who say Microsoft software is simply more reliable (particularly for non-experts) and that most students will be using Microsoft products when they begin work anyway.

Getting Vista into schools would have benefits for Microsoft beyond just the sale price. If more schools had Vista, they�d be more likely to buy newer Microsoft software such as Office 2007. It would also mean more students would be used to Microsoft products and be more likely to buy them later in life (which is why Microsoft is launching a program to give free web and game development software to students).

With that in mind, it might be worthwhile for the company to rethink its licensing agreement for schools, and to make a particular effort to add education-friendly features to Windows 7. It might even be profitable to make some contribution towards schools which buy new computers to run Vista � though that could raise questions among competition regulators.

John Lister is a freelance writer from Manchester, England. After graduating from a professionally-accredited journalism degree course in 1998, he spent six years running the press office for Plain English Campaign, a pressure group working to make public information clearer. He now works full-time writing articles and producing summaries of newspaper reports.

His technology-writing experience includes daily articles for the Infopackets technology newsletter. His other specialties include the professional wrestling industry, about which he has written two books.