[Technical] Interesting computers-in-education piece. Education & the ACCC

[Con Zymaris]

 Why use Open Source when Microsoft products are so cheap...?
 http://unplugd.com/junkyard/?q=node/1

here's a taste:

 Studies we carried out at Grant High School, Mt. Gambier, South 
 Australia, showed that users' preference for applications to do specific 
 tasks, is closely related to when in their education they were introduced 
 to the applications. A concrete example: Half a photography class was 
 subjected to Adobe Photoshop for image manipulation, the other half was 
 using The Gimp. Halfway through the term, the students swapped 'weapons'. 
 The study showed, that the ones who were initially using Photoshop didn't 
 like Gimp, and the 'Gimp-borne' students thought that Photoshop was crap.

Also, for your information, Cybersource is filing an official complaint
with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The
various state Departments of Education do not run open tenders whereby
competitors to Microsoft can pitch solutions. They only run tenders to see
which Microsoft reseller gets the business. This is wrong and needs to
change. I'm sure you can see why yourself. 

If you look at the Department of Education tenders, for instance:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:j9epup_oTbgJ:www.tenders.vic.gov.au/domino/w
eb_notes/etenders/etdrpublishing.nsf/0/b8d46135660ad6dfca256af000219fbb/Body/M2
/000195RFT_30June01.doc%3FOpenElement+microsoft+licence+education+victoria+tend
er+site:tenders.vic.gov.au&hl=en&start=2

and other tenders:

http://www.tenders.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/eTenders/etdrPublishing.nsf/TendersAll/1FBD1620F75B0177CA256DAD0019EE76?OpenDocument
http://www.tenders.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/eTenders/etdrPublishing.nsf/TendersAll/7BF95C03A8103C34CA256BC300206AD0?OpenDocument
http://www.tenders.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/eTenders/etdrPublishing.nsf/TendersAll/7BF95C03A8103C34CA256BC300206AD0?OpenDocument
http://www.tenders.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/eTenders/etdrPublishing.nsf/TendersAll/1FBD1620F75B0177CA256DAD0019EE76?OpenDocument

You will note that the Department has automatically decided on Microsoft
as the platform, not giving competitors like Cybersource a chance to bid
with our lower cost and more functional products.

If you value competition for you tax dollars spend, if you value building
Australian industry, if you are interested to know why we are doing this, 
drop me a line.


Cheers,

Con Zymaris
CEO
Cybersource   
-- 
___________________________________________________________________________
Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne, Australia 
Cybersource: Australia's Leading Linux and Open Source Solutions Company 
Web: http://www.cyber.com.au/  Phone: 03 9621 2377   Fax: 03 9621 2477