After Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype things have gone from bad to “omg are you kidding me?”.   Skype now installs bloatware on your computer and the frequency of adverts being displayed on your screen increasing dramatically I felt it was time to leave the sinking ship.

Don’t get me wrong, I used Skype daily and it’s still got some great projects running but Microsoft have a history of really messing up services like Skype but forcing us to all use them.  Sure we loved Skype before it got bloated, I remember when I used to install Skype and only use it for calls, now I’m constantly finding myself in a state of frustration when I have 20 ads to close, 50 payment reminders or the service fails to perform.

Primary Technology out-grew Skype.  I didn’t want video conferencing, I wanted more people in an audio call and PrimaryT now has 20+ members of staff so I needed something distraction free, light weight, reliable, free and barrier free.

Skype’s recent partnering with Facebook and MySpace sends even more shudders down my spine.  I don’t trust Microsoft much and I don’t trust Facebook at all, I’m not alone on this and there are plenty of reasons why such as Microsoft’s patent on eavesdropping calls and the idea of integrating Facebook with my audio calls leaves me in a dark, worried place.  We should also remember that voice / language detection technology is so advanced that if you think a transcript can’t be made of your phone conversations you are horrible naive (a bit like the Facebook facial recognition stuff everyone said wasn’t computationally possible).

I also worry about the idea of bringing “credits” into social networks, at what point will I have to pay to ask someone to be my friend?

Say hello to Mumble

I was first introduced to Mumble by a member of the Piraten Partiet, they use it with hundereds of people to hold their voice conferences.  Imagine 400 people on one phone call?  It should be chaos right?  Wrong.  If you are a gamer: Mumble is like Vent/Teamspeak but completely open source and much better audio quality.  If you’re not a gamer..  What you need to know about Mumble is that it’s a client/server service.  You can’t make calls to land lines.  A few major downers for teachers are that you need someone to host a mumble server for your school and there is no video calls.  Who even finds video calls productive anyway?  I never did…

Mumble’s client is great, it’s so unbelievably easy to use and lightweight, the whole project has a really good feel to it and I expect to see some really great things coming soon!

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Microsoft’s $8.5bn purchase of Skype has raised a few eyebrows, but we don’t care about most peoples, what we care about is how this purchase will affect Primary Schools.  In this post I am going to try to summarize the real life impacts of such a purchase and how you should consider using Skype in the classroom.

Things we can expect:

• Skype will come bundled with Windows 8.
• Open source & tech folks will stop using Skype and begin looking at alternatives.
• Google will be panicking.
• Windows Mobile 8 will have a big emphasis on VOIP connectivity
• Microsoft will attempt to play a bigger part in mobile data connectivity
• Skype and the VOIP stuff used for Xbox Live will be integrated
• You will be able to Sign into Skype using your XBLA or Microsoft.com/Live.com account

Microsoft will use Skypes deep telco contracts to leverage cheaper mobile communications.  With all these new connections and contracts it is conceivable Microsoft will partner with a manufacturer to provide a data connected laptop/netbook using the Amazon Kindle model of data.  The kindle model of data is basically a pay once, use forever but it has recently been announced this is likely to be subsidized by adverts appearing on your device.   You should seriously think about where you stand on Ads in the Primary School Classroom.  I think the potential use of these “light internet use netbook devices” could be perfect but basic net browsing however they won’t be suitable for 5+ pupils in the same classroom browsing ”rich-content”, whatever that is in 3-10 years time.

If you are interested in e-Safety then I would say that now is a great time to have a really good think about the e-safety risks that Skype poses, especially if it is going to be installed natively on Microsoft Windows devices.  Skype has the same e-safety challenges of Facebook, it just gets less attention because it currently isn’t as widely adopted.

You may be wondering if you should sign up for the Skype in the Classroom and I would say go ahead, it’s unlikely Microsoft will lose this battle in the same way they lost[/committed suicide] the MSN battle.  Skype was running at a loss and Microsoft has basically “bailed it out” and given it a long future.  At Primary Technology we use Skype as our main source of voice communication and we have no plan to leave it as it provides great value.  We will leave Skype is a good, open source source, distributed telco connected solution appears, I doubt that though.

So to summarize..  We are one step closer to getting 4G connected Windows devices, we have an elevated e-safety issue to address, Microsoft own yet another part of your life.

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Internet Explorer 10 preview came out today and it doesn’t support websockets which is a huge shame Chrome does, Firefox supports them but it’s disabled by default.. Others also support Websockets.

Websockets makes your internet experience better by giving you the ability to have faster data responses on websites. This means that really-real time web applications such as Etherpad and PrimaryWall can be adopted easier.

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I am not going to cover the student licensing model because I’m relatively confident this model wont fit for most Primary Schools.
The new licensing model we will look at covers Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office licensing.  We are also ignoring Exchange and Sharepoint CALs(CAL Suite).

What does this all mean in real terms?

When might EES not be appropriate?

1. EES may also not be cost effective if you purchase OEM licenses or don’t use Microsoft Office.
2. EES may not be useful if your school does not have a high quantity of devices (netbooks/laptops) running Microsoft Office.
3. If your school intends to NOT purchase new hardware or new Microsoft products.
4. If you don’t want to get into an annual rolling contract with Microsoft due to funding uncertainties or due to a requirement of a grant etc.

Time for some maths…

All of these figures are based on a 2 form entry school buying new Microsoft Office licenses every 5 years.
Standard licensing model:
Cost per office license per machine, £32
Average # of devices with office installed, 80
*Windows License — Excluded because is OEM (Roughly £50 per device)
Average cost every 5 years — £2560
Ergo cost per year on Non EES per device license model — £512

EES:
Average cost per EES Office license per member of staff — £20
Average # of staff members per 2 form entry: 30
Ergo cost per year for office on EES: £600
Ergo cost per year for Windows on EES: £600
Note that I haven’t covered any Server CALS.

To summarize

EES breaks even at roughly 100 devices in a 2 form entry school but the advantage is that staff can use Microsoft Office at home so don’t need their own copy.
It is unlikely EES will be cheaper than OEM as buying a device without windows lately is difficult however XP Pro upgrades are roughly £50 per device so if you buy 15 devices per year then EES Windows Licenses work out better value. A smart hardware manufacturer should see this opportunity and provide OS free hardware so that schools can leverage this new licensing model.

Hopefully someone from Microsoft can respond with some information about CAL licensing and any mistakes in this post. Word on the street is CAL pricing will be staying relatively similar for Server CALS, this pricing isn’t due to be released till May.

I quickly bashed up an EEE license cost calculator so you can see if it’s cost effective for your school to move or not

If you want to know more about EES please get in touch with Primary Technology who will be happy to help.

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Each bing = good.

So it appears to work, and if we can just say, y’know. Collect 3 stars there is no need for incidents like this:

This video shows the potential of using Kinect’s depth perception to control a user interface with multitouch.

Finally, The facial recognition is supposed to really good. Sounds like the Kinect hardware is going to be a winner. I don’t know what % of users will end up owning a 360 so my recommendation to you is to treat the Kinect as a separate platform.

If you are a developer I would consider focusing on preparing your offline and online material for “Kinect aware” devices. If Kinect aware adobe flash content begins popping up it could create a whole new market place and genre of game.

This video shows how the Kinect can replace a conventional smart board:

This video shows it’s potential use to control puppets!! Awesome!

Here is a video that demonstrates how game creators are compensating poor control quality by adding auto steering to make the gaming experience feel less detached..

This is nice, it shows using multiple Kinects to map a physical space to a 3d model.

Remind anyone of the Eyes to the front proposal I did?

Kinect gesture recognition controlling web browser(chrome)

Some guy in Essex has written a driver for controlling Windows 7 (sort of like a touch screen)

If MS release face detection as part of an API then a simple facial detection system for class registration.

Kinect could also be used as a tool for assigning IWB control to pupils.

I think we should look past the obvious of just UI control in a touchscreen format, we must remember the potential for depth.

Here we can see a kinect being used to pass control from one user to another..

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I think its cool that Microsoft are trying but I don’t believe it’s enough.  Shame though because I think a load of educational games tied into an Xbox live type reward structure would be highly motivating and more motivating than a reward structure that is purely focused on Edu.

5 main barriers for Microsoft:

1. WM7 has too much catchup to do on android
2. WM7 doesn’t have a following of developers
3. WM7 devices wont be as open as android
4. The Xbox live market is pretty small (compared to Google owned farmville etc.)
5. Lots of xbox live games just wont translate well to mobile (control/interface issues etc).

Will I be looking to develop some educational games for xbox live?  Nah.  I’d rather stick with Flash/HTML5 games and a free/open scoring/reward mechanism.

Further reading on xbox live on WM7 is available here.

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Contrary to popular belief Microsoft is longer is Microsoft the money grabbing beast it used to be.

It’s easy for companies  to try to exploit new revenue streams and to gain investor support but this isn’t about new markets, this is about reducing existing market share or presenting better value in markets that provide a healthy revenue stream for Microsoft.

Microsoft are pro-actively cutting existing revenue streams to aid education, I am involved in this and although it damages our profitability it does increase our ability and potential to provide a better service at a lower price.

Live @ Edu is a perfect example of this.  We purchase thousands of pounds/dollars worth of Microsoft Exchange licenses each month and then resell those on to schools through a service called Primary Email.  The introduction of Live at Edu means we can still sell Primary Email but instead of using our own hosting and having to pay Microsoft for Licenses,  Microsoft cover it all, how nice is that?!

Live at Edu is a free service but because we have worked in Primary schools providing email for so long we are able to offer the 5% extra that makes a big difference to how a school efficiently uses email.  Eventually Microsoft will figure this out and push us entirely out of the market and that is fine, but until that point it give us a great opportunity to offer a great service at a ridiculously low price!

Question is..  How does the Microsoft Exchange team feel about this?  Knowing Microsoft I think they will feel somewhat vulnerable and the thought of merging the Exchange team with the Office team could make for some uncomfortable conversations..

In reality..  Imagine you were payed £20k to do your job then your boss said we can’t pay you any more AND you have to work for free..  But in 10 years time your £20k will be £50k.  I hope this is sustainable for Microsoft, I’m pretty sure it will be and their business model/plan will be widely adopted in other emerging and stale markets.

Finally it is worth saying that past experiences means that we do treat Microsoft with the same treatment we treat  other companies growing at the rate of a steroid infused tuma.  With a very, very, very large pole, muzzle and a poached salmon and rocket sandwich.

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Price

Office Web Apps is completely free, you don’t need to buy into Microsoft Office or pay any registration free.  In fact you can start using it right now by visiting Microsoft Office Live.

Documents are stored online

When you work on an office web app all of your documents are stored on Microsoft’s Skydrive.  This means that even if your local computer crashes you won’t lose any documents.  By storing files online you can also access them from anywhere with an internet connection and easily share and collaborate with other people.  Of course the collaboration isn’t as great as PrimaryPad as it is only sentence by sentence and not really-real time

No download or purchase required

Because Office web apps 2010 are completely online you don’t need to download, install or configure anything before you get started.  Watch the video below to get an idea of how simple it is to use.  For advanced editor features you will have to purchase Office 2010

Management with Live @ Edu

Live @ Edu is a service available for your primary school that allows you to have a management portal that manages the configuration of Microsoft Office Web Apps for your school.  Live @ Edu offers a lot more than this but essentially if you think of it being a way to customize a pupil or teachers experience of using one of the Microsoft Office Web Apps tools then you can’t go far wrong!

Limitations

With Web Apps being relatively new (although in Beta for a long time at Microsoft) there are some obvious limitations:

• Difficult to wrap text around images
• Impossible to send content straight from a school MIS to the Web Apps.

I strongly recommend signing into your hotmail/live account and clicking the Office button and having a play.  Only you will know how your school uses Office applications so only you can say what is a limitation for you.  If you do find any please post them as a comment!

Summary

With office 2010 being familiar to schools and a very few barriers to uptake I can see this perfectly complimenting the work we are doing in Bradford, I look forward to deploying Live@Edu and think that the impact of extending learning should be easily measurable from an assessment point of view.  The conservatives want to focus on the basics, what better way to focus on the basics than by delivering them anywhere, any time?

Have you had a chance to play with it yet?  Is it too limiting for you?  Do you believe we should be blogging/emailing  instead of word processing?

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