Last week the Ministry of Ed. decided not to cough up about $4million so that schools could run MSOffice on Apples. They already pay a whack to MS and felt that there were perfectly good alternatives. One principal complained can caused a stir.

I wrote an article on the background issues that appeared here at stuff.co.nz.

Text of the article below (as Stuff archives stories after a while). I didn't pick the headline:

School software stoush shows changing times

By DONALD CHRISTIE - Stuff.co.nz | Monday, 4 June 2007

Pinehill Primary School principal Julian Le Sueur must be wondering what has hit him.

Last Tuesday he was reported (www.stuff.co.nz/4076857a28.html) criticising the Ministry of Education for not funding the licences required to run certain Microsoft software products on the 25,000 Apple computers used in New Zealand schools.

Within hours the Ministry decision was being discussed in technical circles around New Zealand and the world. The next morning Le Sueur appeared in a 23 minute slot on National Radio's Nine to Noon programme.

The extraordinarily well briefed interviewer, Kathryn Ryan, managed to extract the admission that if Le Sueur's school were given the opportunity to manage software purchases themselves they would probably not buy Microsoft software.

She also managed to get Murray Brown, from the Ministry of Education, to admit that they would have had to pay Microsoft an extra $4 to $5 million over and above the roughly $100 million they have already paid to use their products in New Zealand's schools.

This apparently works out at about $200 per computer for a three year licence, which sounds like a very good deal until you factor in the time limit. Additionally, according to Murray Brown, only about 40 per cent of school computers actually use the software for which this money is paid.

It is worth noting that the One Laptop Per Child initiative is producing complete children's laptops ? including software - for a similar sum.

So, why the seemingly sudden interest and commentary on such a mundane subject? Computers are everywhere, as is Microsoft. Surely this is a storm in a teacup?

The answer is that, yes, it is a storm in a teacup right now. But in the IT world things change, and when change happens it happens quickly.

Changes lurk before emerging; the internet was around for many years in one form or another before it "revolutionised" our lives.

Similarly, for a while it seemed that the only company from whom to buy a corporate PC was IBM. When some upstart called Compaq reverse engineered the technology the landscape changed. This brought near oblivion to the world's most powerful IT company, but IBM relented and the PC architecture became an open design.

Today prices are considerably lower, the design has improved considerably, and PC manufacturers abound.

The certainty that Le Sueur brought up on National Radio is that Microsoft is everywhere in the world, and he does not want his children to be disadvantaged by having barriers to entry to this Microsoft dominated place. Fair enough. But many people, including Microsoft, are realising that the Microsoft certainty in life is about to become an uncertainty.

For over twenty years now software engineers have been quietly, and not so quietly, building free and open software tools to run everything on your computer. Examples range from word processors, email tools, music and DVD players to the core of the internet.

Open source software tools are not only available as end products but they are available in code form so that other interested parties are able to modify the code and 'pass it on'. This process of building on what has gone before has created a very deep and wide set of resources, much of which is of a quality that equals or surpasses that of traditional commercial software.

Some companies, whose business model is based on writing software once and then selling a licence to give clients the rights to use the software, are feeling challenged right now. Some are going out of business. Others have simply adapted and changed their model.

Silverstripe is a Kiwi company that freely released the code to its commercial product and now is building a successful business around support services rather than charging for its actual use.

On a grander scale IBM, having learnt the hard way about change, has been right behind open source software, and particularly the Linux operating system since about 1999.

Other companies such as Sun Systems and Novell have made similar moves whilst Silicon Valley start-ups these days are attracting billions of dollars in venture capital funding for ideas and products that are built using these open source tool sets.

Up until now Microsoft's domination in many markets has been so total and so "certain" that any challenge to it has seemed unthinkable.

But the Ministry of Education's refusal to pay for Microsoft software it feels it no longer needs is a reflection of similar small steps taken by local and central governments round the world.

Brown suggested that the next time they look at software for schools, the landscape will be very different. Options which were not available when the taxpayer last had our hard-earned cash coughed up to Microsoft will be much more open.

These options include not paying a penny for the software used by our children, keeping the money in New Zealand and spending it on alternatives.

With this thinking being reflected round the world you start to understand the interest from technology and business commentators.

Watchers know that those large multi-million dollar deals are going to get harder and harder for Microsoft to renew. The question is, will they buckle or will they change their business model, just as IBM was forced to 20 years ago?

Pinehill Primary School's issues and how they play out could be a microcosm of what becomes a world wide tipping point for how software is used and regarded.

Last, but certainly not least, we really should "think of the children".

Nat Torkington, a father of two, points out that schools teach kids how to learn.

On computers that learning might include how to build presentations and use word processors. The software to do this varies little between Mac and Windows, Microsoft and Apple and pen source.

The important thing to teach is the skills. Saying they won't be able to use Windows if they learn on open source is like saying they won't be able to write with a pen if they learn on pencils.

This is important, because employers are not going to be very impressed with someone who walks into their offices and struggles because the computer does not work the same as it used to when they were in primary school.

They want someone who understands the building blocks and then has the ability to get creative and actually drives the paradigm shifts that surprise the IBMs and Microsofts of this world whilst delighting the rest of us.

That's what a real knowledge economy is about.

Donald Christie is a Director of Catalyst IT Limited in Wellington. He would like to acknowledge the input to this column from several sources, including Vik Olliver, IT Consultant and software developer; Nat Torkington technical author; and Peter Harrison, President of the New Zealand Open Source Society.