RE: [seul-edu] Typical costs paid by school districtsfor software?

["Culp, David" <CulpD@cfbisd.edu>]

Yes, as I was reading it the costs savings would only be $29.00 for a basic
workstation with Win 98 and MS Office.  For a large district like mine that
would be a savings of $203,000.00 for the roughly 7,000 systems they have
deployed.  However, I know our district does not install Windows NT
themselves, they have whatever OEM they purchase the system from do it so
the cost of NT is probably a bit higher.

I dont really see Linux making inroads into large school districts like
mine.  The technology budget here is absolutley huge and a savings of $29.00
per system is minimal.  I really see Linux making its way into smaller
schools that cannot afford the latest and greatest in hardware and software.
If a typical school could have a total savings of $200.00 from both the
hardware and the software it would go along way to further bring Linux into
schools.  If a small district had 6 schools and wanted to install two 30
station labs in each school the savings would be $72,000.  I actually
imagine the savings would be even greater with the biggest bulk of the
savings coming in hardware costs.

Even large school districts if they would stop listening to the consultants
they hire that tell them they must have the latest and greatest machines
could save a bundle.  Ive got a 400Mhz PII with 128MB of RAM and 10GB HD
with an HP desk Jet 692C for a workstation as do the other teachers in the
school who use it mainly to do email, surf and do wordprocessing.  This is
way overkill as I have not even begun to tax the machine!  Going with an AMD
processor, less RAM and smaller HD could save around $200.00 in hardware
costs alone.  Which would equate to 1.4 million dollars for my district with
their 7,000 machines! 

This is where we should concentrate the cost savings, in hardware.  Of
course this is just a surface examination with very little research.

David Culp

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Doug Loss [SMTP:dloss@suscom.net]
> Sent:	Wednesday, December 15, 1999 8:56 AM
> To:	seul-edu@seul.org
> Subject:	Re: [seul-edu] Typical costs paid by school districtsfor
> software?
> 
> Chris Hobbs wrote:
> > 
> > Schools here in California have the opportuinty to buy as part of a
> > consortium, which allows small schools like mine to purchase MS, Apple,
> > and Filemaker software as though we were buying in the 10,000+ license
> > range, which is a real savings. I feel sorry for the
> > suck^H^H^H^Hcustomers that must pay full boat for things like Office or
> > the NT OS.
> > 
> > Anyway, to make life easy on you, have a look at:
> > 
> > http://ca-soft.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/pricing.htm
> > 
> As I read it, the minimum cost for a workstation would be $10 for
> Windows 98 and $19 for MS Office Pro V7.0B, for a total of $29/seat. 
> That doesn't include the cost of the server OS or software, or course. 
> This kind of cost comparison info will be very useful for justifying
> Linux in schools on a cost/benefit basis, and helpful to me personally
> as we prepare for the LinuxCanada seminar on education.  Could you,
> Chris, (and anyone else who has equivalent information) work up the
> figures on cost savings of Linux over other options and post them here? 
> Thanks.
> 
> -- 
> Doug Loss                 The difference between the right word and
> Data Network Coordinator  the almost right word is the difference
> Bloomsburg University     between lightning and a lightning bug.
> dloss@bloomu.edu                Mark Twain