I was amused to read the story of Warrington School the other day. It seems that the principal, eager to stretch his IT resources further, decided to install Linux on the machines within his school rather than the Windows OS that they are generally supplied with. The change has enabled the school to use lower spec machines and even lend surplus low-spec machines to students who don’t have computers at home.

Seeing an opportunity, said principal has requested from the Ministry of Education that the fees that would have been payable to Microsoft for Windows, be forwarded directly to the school to pay for a local technician and further development of the OpenSource platform.

Not surprisingly the authorities are yet to respond to the school’s request!

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

2 Comments
  • Great story. Maybe it’s only technical illiteracy that’s stopping us all doing this or using Open Office instead of MS Office. Schools are spending a lot of cash on IT resources so if they can develop a good system for schools to use that saves them cash then that’s very helpful.

    Is there a reason why this is not more in use?

  • ditto – great story, top work bringing it to our attention

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