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vcutag · Apr 29, 2005, 01:12 PM

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet...=1031782431108

From the local rag in Richmond, Henrico County, the first public school system in the US to distribute laptops to all HS and MS students, is ditching Apple in favor of Dell computers.

Any bets on how long they last on Windows?

Millennium · Apr 29, 2005, 01:50 PM

Oh, they'll last a good long time. As long as they're on the payroll, that is.

ManOfSteal · Apr 29, 2005, 01:57 PM

Yeah, that hurt reading that news this afternoon. I hope other 1-to-1's are not going to follow suit...

olePigeon · Apr 29, 2005, 02:17 PM

They'll go broke in support costs. Just like at my new job. They have to buy spare parts constantly to fix the PCs that are just out of warranty. It's just terrible.

ManOfSteal · Apr 29, 2005, 02:27 PM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

They'll go broke in support costs. Just like at my new job. They have to buy spare parts constantly to fix the PCs that are just out of warranty. It's just terrible.

The same thing happens when you have an Apple (or any other) 1-to-1 initiative unfortunately, I know from experience.

olePigeon · Apr 29, 2005, 02:37 PM

Oh, few more things. Now that they've bought the laptops, they have to set up a multi-thousand dollar support contract with Lavasoft for Ad-Aware, or maybe Spybot (or both?), another support contact with Norton for AntiVirus.

Let's see if they're stupid enough to get the support contract through Microsoft. That's $316,000 in annual fees for XP Home edition, and another $158,000 for Office. So they're going to spend $474,000 a year, every year, for as long as they keep those laptops, on top of however much they're paying a year for the $17.9 million.

And the second they stick in a Windows Server on campus (which they probably will), uh oh, here come the CALs! There'll probably be about 20,000 devices around connecting to the server. I just selected the Desktop Suite one. Includes Office + Windows. So that's another $980,000.

Welcome to Windows Licensing! How do you wanna go broke today?

ghporter · Apr 29, 2005, 03:20 PM

Dell typically provides a full-service support commitment for schools. They do everything they can remotely, provide all the management and security software needed, and can even provide training for the sysadmins. It's not a bad deal, though it's not as cool as having Macs throughout the school system.

The market battleground is now in the schools, and it's one-on-one between Apple and Dell, since none of the other PC players is even bothering. Note that Dell's corporate and governmental (that includes schools) support is radically different-and much, much better-from their home/consumer support.

It could be worse. They could have gone with HP. They'd be belly up within the first semester. HP still makes Compaq laptops, and they're still merde.

Link · Apr 29, 2005, 03:58 PM

Do you realize how "GREAT" this is going to be for all the kids going to schools out there? From what I've heard, everybody HATES the apple computers and wants windows.. shame huh?

budster101 · Apr 29, 2005, 04:30 PM

They should not be allowed to vote.... or drive cars, or procreate.

nredman · Apr 29, 2005, 04:33 PM

shouldn't take long before some kid downloads a virus from a porn site or email and takes the whole school down/

vcutag · Apr 29, 2005, 07:12 PM

Originally Posted by Link

Do you realize how "GREAT" this is going to be for all the kids going to schools out there? From what I've heard, everybody HATES the apple computers and wants windows.. shame huh?

Unless this is sarcasm, I'm wondering how many Henrico county public school students you know. My fianc� used to teach in Henrico county, and a couple of my friends still do.

I don't think they're going to be too thrilled.

Cody Dawg · Apr 29, 2005, 07:36 PM

Oh. My. Gosh.

Did anyone read one of the threads recently where we have gone through DELL HELL trying to get help for a brand new laptop UNDER EXTENDED EXPRESS WARRANTY?

Here is the thread to refresh your memory: DELL HELL.

All I need is 1 minute, just ONE MINUTE, alone in a room with the person who made the decision to put Dell in their schools.

What a huge disaster.

ghporter · Apr 29, 2005, 07:53 PM

Cody, their school support structure is far different from the "kinda/sorta corporate" support structure you had to deal with. Completely different and of course worlds better.

nredman, any school worth the price of a pencil will have a very robust firewall and proxy system to keep the kids from downloading anything like that. In fact, the firewall at my son's school is locked down so tight that there are truly legitimate sites that they can't get to. No porn is getting there that way. And viruses aren't just downloaded-most of the time they're contained in malicious web sites (which will be in the firewall's "banned" category) or from emails-and that will be heavily monitored. The last time I used a school computer to browse the Internet without the school having a firewall that I was aware of, I used Linx-because that was ALL there was.

MilkmanDan · Apr 29, 2005, 09:45 PM

Those poor children. Would someone think of the children.

loki74 · Apr 30, 2005, 12:38 AM

*sigh* .....bad call

the_glassman · Apr 30, 2005, 10:54 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Cody, their school support structure is far different from the "kinda/sorta corporate" support structure you had to deal with. Completely different and of course worlds better.

nredman, any school worth the price of a pencil will have a very robust firewall and proxy system to keep the kids from downloading anything like that. In fact, the firewall at my son's school is locked down so tight that there are truly legitimate sites that they can't get to. No porn is getting there that way. And viruses aren't just downloaded-most of the time they're contained in malicious web sites (which will be in the firewall's "banned" category) or from emails-and that will be heavily monitored. The last time I used a school computer to browse the Internet without the school having a firewall that I was aware of, I used Linx-because that was ALL there was.

But they get to take the laptops home!

His Dudeness · Apr 30, 2005, 10:56 AM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Oh, few more things. Now that they've bought the laptops, they have to set up a multi-thousand dollar support contract with Lavasoft for Ad-Aware, or maybe Spybot (or both?), another support contact with Norton for AntiVirus.

Let's see if they're stupid enough to get the support contract through Microsoft. That's $316,000 in annual fees for XP Home edition, and another $158,000 for Office. So they're going to spend $474,000 a year, every year, for as long as they keep those laptops, on top of however much they're paying a year for the $17.9 million.

And the second they stick in a Windows Server on campus (which they probably will), uh oh, here come the CALs! There'll probably be about 20,000 devices around connecting to the server. I just selected the Desktop Suite one. Includes Office + Windows. So that's another $980,000.

Welcome to Windows Licensing! How do you wanna go broke today?

If they're smart, and we already know that they're not because of going with Dell, then they'll load Ubuntu on every single laptop. Free OS and then load the free Open Office on them all.

His Dudeness · Apr 30, 2005, 10:57 AM

Originally Posted by MilkmanDan

Those poor children. Would someone think of the children.

theolein · Apr 30, 2005, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Cody, their school support structure is far different from the "kinda/sorta corporate" support structure you had to deal with. Completely different and of course worlds better.

nredman, any school worth the price of a pencil will have a very robust firewall and proxy system to keep the kids from downloading anything like that. In fact, the firewall at my son's school is locked down so tight that there are truly legitimate sites that they can't get to. No porn is getting there that way. And viruses aren't just downloaded-most of the time they're contained in malicious web sites (which will be in the firewall's "banned" category) or from emails-and that will be heavily monitored. The last time I used a school computer to browse the Internet without the school having a firewall that I was aware of, I used Linx-because that was ALL there was.

This is simply not true. I used to be a sys admin in a company and we had Dells. Around 5% of the machines had hardware problems on arrival. Dell wouldn't take them back. Their hardware repair all around the world is outsourced. In Switzerland that means the technicians are from Unisys. The techs were so incompetent that after 7 service visits onsite, and after having replaced almost every component in the machines, including motherboard, cpu, ram and power supplies, they still couldn't find the source of the problem. I finally discovered that the problem was due to the fact that there was a design fault on the motherboard. During the time that those machines were down, Dell gave us no replacement machines. Their call center (in Germany since Indians don't speak German much) could not track our problems over a period of time. each call was basically a new attempt to fix the problem.

Now, this might just be Dell in Switzerland, but I doubt it.

olePigeon · Apr 30, 2005, 07:23 PM

Quark has their call support center in India. It's imossible to understand most of them over the phone. Troubleshooting the QLA server took 3 days. Kept calling until we could get someone that we could understand.

The reason those kids "hated" the iBooks is because they coudn't install Counter-Strike. They actually had to use those laptops for *gasp* work.