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back to article RM: School spending on tech is soft, soggy and downright subdued

School spending on tech remains “subdued”, according to specialist education supplier RM at the half-way stage of its fiscal year 2016, ended 31 May. Revenue slid 3.8 per cent year-on-year to £76.8m, but excluding the disposal of SpaceKraft, which made sensory learning devices for children with special needs, sales fell 1.4 …

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  1. Nezumi
    Trollface

    Anyone who has worked in education will tell you why RM isn't doing so well

    Hint: It's rebadged overpriced crap.

    6 0 Reply
  2. Androgynous Cowherd

    Why are schools still being duped by RM? Expensive and woefully rubbish hardware.

    3 0 Reply
  3. Number6

    Still going? I remember their good old 380Z and even the 480Z machines. The 380Z was somewhat expensive and over-engineered but I remember it well and wrote my first BASIC and machine code programs on one.

    It's memories like that which are probably the reason they're still around.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      480Z...

      ... was seriously overpriced even when compared to it's contemporary, the BBC micro (which was also expensive).

      There were niches where the 480Z was a more appropriate machine than a BEEB, but IMHO, if you didn't need CP/M compatibility, the BEEB was more versatile and accessible machine for schools.

      The 380Z was from a different time, several years before most schools had budget to buy computers (and could be built and upgraded piecemeal) and before cheaper machines were available. They were well built, however, and survived for years, especially as they were often locked away from general use, or used as file and print servers for 480Zs.

      0 0 Reply
    2. src
      Reply Icon

      I wrote my first BASIC on my school's 380Z. There wasn't a chance in hell my parents would buy any sort of computer so it was vital in giving me my first experience of software development. Amazed they are still going but grateful for the opportunity I got via them and The Avenue Comprehensive School (RIP).

      0 0 Reply
  4. Dabooka
    Headmaster

    You say expensive and rubbish...

    which they were (are?), but my memories were they were solid. Unlike the rows of knackered Dells with broken ports, missing panels, borked screens etc.

    Not saying it's good value, but it clealry paid for itslef in the longterm in some people's eyes.

    FLASHBACK - Did anyone else here rememeber Newspeak(?) their DTP package? Wow. Just... wow.

    0 0 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RM's ultimate downfall will be that they are not a division of Capita. Government only gives contracts to those jokers.

    0 0 Reply
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    First two comments.... finger on the pulse I see......

    RM hasn't made any hardware for about 3 years, after closing the hardware business and laying 300 of us off in one swoop just before xmas, which was nice. Haters will always be haters, immature comments with no substantiation. We continually had the best DOA rate in the industry on all our PCs and Notebooks which were all assembled proudly in deepest rural Oxfordshire. In its hayday the factory had 10 production lines which could assemble around 120 PCs a shift.

    0 1 Reply

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