AZ students,MS office. Help me!

[Alan Dayley]

It is a *done* deal.  They did it quietly, minimizing public comment and 
knowledge and have released the "pat-themselves-on-the-back" press release 
now that the ASP contract has been awarded.  I assume that there would be 
penalties to the state if the contract is cancelled.  I also assume that 
there would be a way out of the deal of the service is not provided reliably.

All these ideas and mobilization is good.  No, great!  But, we are on the 
up-hill side of getting the public schools out of the deal because the ink is 
dry, as far as I know.

So, what do we do?
-Financial analysis on cost of this deal vs. open source.  Send to elected 
reps and SFB.
-Research and document open source solutions that are working now
-Protest against wasted money
-Write Letters
-Educate your neighbors
-etc.

But I think we really need to do now is concentrate on creating wider, 
successful examples of open source in schools.  We still have charter schools 
that would love the help.  Why not help Brian there at Sequoia?  There are 
some charter schools that have multiple campuses.  Hook on the campuses up on 
a WAN or VPN with "old" PCs that are "too slow" and watch them be useful for 
pennies per student.

If (or when?) the ASP deal turns into a pain for the system, or a disaster of 
budget over-runs, we must be ready with real success examples, research and 
public opinion on our side.  At the very least, the contract is up in 4 years 
and if the experience was only acceptable, they might be looking around for 
better ideas for less money.

Alan

On Thursday 30 August 2001 02:59 pm, you wrote:
> Now the next question is:
>
> Is the MS ASP thing a *done* deal.
>
> If AZ is committed then there is probably little reason to waste money
> trying to back out of the deal.
>
>
> However, even if the door is closed on Arizona, there are 49 other states
> watching what happens here.  The case study would be important for
> not-Microsoft solution vendors in lobbying for those lucrative contracts.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> > [mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of Gary
> > Nichols
> > Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 2:38 PM
> > To: PLUG List
> > Subject: RE: AZ students,MS office. Help me!
> >
> >
> > Ok guys, I just talked with Sun Corporate  and gave them the story.
> > There is some interest!  They had me leave a long voice mail for the
> > corp affairs people and they are going to call me back.  Stay Tuned!!!
> >
> > ~ Gary
> >
> > On Thu, 2001-08-30 at 14:16, Trent Shipley wrote:
> > > I think an important source of support in this would be the folks at
> > > Sun/Star.
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> > > > [mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of
> > > > Brian Cluff
> > > > Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 12:44 PM
> > > > To: plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> > > > Subject: Re: AZ students,MS office. Help me!
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I think the letter really needs a list of govt agencies and
> >
> > other large
> >
> > > > entities that are currently using StarOffice with great success.
> > > > Otherwise
> > > > these politican type with just say... what the hell is
> > > > staroffice... it must
> > > > be crap
> > > >
> > > > Probably also need to stress a little more that it's prefectly
> > > > legal to give
> > > > every kid in the school a copy of it to use at home, since that
> > > > seems to be
> > > > a large part of the problem, and that it's also multiplatform
> >
> > so they wont
> >
> > > > have a bunch of computers unable to run it either.
> > > >
> > > > Brian Cluff
> > >
> > > ________________________________________________
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> >
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> >
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