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BREAKING NEWS :

Sharjah school dumps high-cost software for open-source applications

By Imthishan Giado on Monday, June 02, 2008

Nash:

Nash: "We felt that it was unfair to subject parents to having to buy Office 2007 for example: that’s roughly $400."

Education provider Scholars International Academy (SIA) has opted for open-source software and thin client systems, in a bid to save parents the cost of proprietary software.

Sharjah-based SIA chose a number of freely available open-source programs - including OpenOffice and the Solaris 10 operating system - to run on top of its new thin clients and servers from Sun Microsystems, which it finished installing last year.

John Nash, network manager and head of ICT for SIA, said: "This academic year, rather than using proprietary software, what we've done is be slightly different and use things like the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) instead of Photoshop, Scribus for desktop publishing and InkScape, which is a full, scalable vector graphics program."

He has made very clear that going with open source software was not solely to cut costs for the school but an attempt to lower the barrier of entry to IT for the students.

"We have parents who cover a broad spectrum of the payscale and we felt that it was unfair to subject them to having to buy Office 2007 for example, so that their child could keep up with the work. That's roughly $400. But a few months later when we start doing Photoshop, the children come home asking for Photoshop -again, that's another $400. Before the parents know where they are, they're more than $800 out of pocket just to keep their child in the ICT field," he explained.
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Nash dismissed concerns about differences in usability between open-source and proprietary software, saying that these programs actually offer a broader experience for users.

"I'm giving them options and teaching them skillsets that are transferable between the two programs, rather than just teaching them: ‘This is Microsoft Office, this is how we use it'. The other reason we've chosen this software is because they are community-based and it means that as we start to roll out into our secondary phase, the children will be well-versed in using those programs and they will hopefully be able to become part of the community in a variety of ways," said Nash.

SIA has installed sixteen thin clients in its student labs, with an option to increase to 70 clients in the future. The implementation includes two Sun servers running Solaris 10 and serving virtual instances of Windows XP to the thin clients via VMware.

Nash said that he was first introduced to the idea of thin clients and open source software at GITEX last year: "I looked at the traditional style network with a normal Windows boxes, but I wasn't particularly comfortable with that. The board didn't need much convincing - it matched in so well with our ideals and aims of being environmentally friendly that they saw the benefit and doubled the initial budget to make sure that we could secure the Sun servers."

Nash adds that ecological concerns played a role in the selection process: "The SIA has a very strong environmental theme running through the whole school so I wanted to reflect that in the ICT infrastructure that we were going to use. The thin clients, for example, only take 4W of power as opposed to a desktop system which takes 16W of power."


User Comments (4 comments)

PCs use 80w to 120w
Posted by Christopher Saul on 3 June 2008 at 23:05 UAE time


Sun Ray 2s use only 4vwatts - PCs use more than 16, more like 80 to 120 watts!
Excellent Decision
Posted by Fadi Yousuf, Dubai, UAE on 2 June 2008 at 22:16 UAE time


Excellent Approach...

There are a lot of open source applications available out there with fantastic functionality. Check www.blender.org for example for 3D animation software.

Definitely a step on the right track and I hope everyone follows suit. Let's all go towards an eco-friendly, open and collaborative framework...
good choice
Posted by max stirner on 2 June 2008 at 21:08 UAE time


lovely stuff - just what the education sector needs!

free software ought to be mandatory in education precisely for the reasons you mention:

- social inclusion: avoid prohibitive costs for proprietary software. if proprietary software offers advanced features, these may be acquired by the students in commercial settings as (if?) required.

- community: student involvement in online community support and development ecosystems may actually foster their talents in the area, and permit them to get involved in the underlying development process.

welcome to the future!
Desktop System Power and Consumption
Posted by Daniel, Madrid, Spain on 2 June 2008 at 14:43 UAE time


I just would like to precise that power and consumption are not the same.
A desktop system may have a 300W power suply which means that this would be the maximum power the system can deliver. But it should be running at an average of 120-160 W. Per example, a single memory RAM consumes less than 5W, if I am correct.
The electrical consumption of a basic PC + 19" Basic LCD may be around 300 kWh/year (Running 8 hours a day).
The consumption of a thin client, per example from Sun (Only 4W of Power consumption!!!) with the same monitor and running under the same conditions would be around 90 kWh/year.
After doing these numbers, we can all asume that PC vendors have a lot to do regarding consumption efficiency.
Anyway...a very wise and ecological decision from Mr. Nash.
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