RM: Killing our PC unit hit our top line, but our bottom line is pert

Re: Politics

Not sure where you got that from!

I work in a school (which is part of a group of Academies) and the school employs its own network manager and technicians to look after the network and associated infrastructure. This is an entirely typical setup, at least in my part of the SE of England.

The only schools which have outsourced IT around here are those who were forced to by the abortion that was BSF - a terrible scheme which involved people running school infrastructure who had no idea of how it works in real life. (Trying to make teachers phone to lodge a support call for a whiteboard not connecting to a PC, for example, whereas in real life they send a pupil into the IT office, someone goes to the class, sorts the issue in a minute or two and the job's done). Needless to say that as soon as they could, schools that were BSF'd for IT went back to the traditional, on-site support method. Heck, some BSF schools even broke out of Northgate and RM's control whilst they were still contracted to use them, figuring that the penalty fees were worth paying to regain control for themselves.

We used to use RM, but they were very overpriced for what you received. Just buying Lenovo or HP machines saved around £100 per machine straight off. We moved to a "vanilla" Windows 2008 network, ditching the expensive and somewhat lobotomised RM Community Connect software, which saved even more money - we no longer have to pay a tax on every PC, instead our licensing is managed on a "number of full-time staff" basis. That gives access to Windows, Office, SCCM and we can upgrade as and when we want to, rather than waiting for RM to come up with a custom package.

Good riddance to RM, in my view. They were far too expensive for what they offered.

Re: Easier to Take Buying Depts for a Ride

Nuke and Skullsmasher

I'd say it was more that RM always sold an implicit service to schools, going back to the early days, supplying the expensive hardware with a package of reassurance - in effect saying "Don't worry about anything, leave it to us, we'll do it for you and you know it will be right because we specialise in schools' computers".

And schools wanted that and anyway felt they had to conform to what all the other schools were buying. The educational equivalent of "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM". LAs recommended them for that same reason.

Which was fine before computers and even networks became a commodity item. Cost counts and RM's premium for supplying school friendly hardware isn't what it used to be. For a start, in the old days, it was that the 380z and 480z machines were solid enough to take the abuse that schools worried their small stock of expensive computers might suffer. These days decent computers are a fraction of the cost, and schools have many more of them. They won't pay a premium for robustness. And the LAs won't recommend them for the same reasons - preferring to negotiate a good volume price with a supplier.

Re: Quit the unprofitable business.

Well they are, but not in the way RM wants them to be.