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Oakleigh completes Microsoft new products assessment for Becta –
results published at BETT08
The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) is the UK Government's key partner in the strategic development and delivery of its information and communications technology (ICT) and e-learning strategies. Over the last two years, Oakleigh has been working with Becta to assess the impact of the use of Microsoft's Vista and Office 2007 products in the UK Educational space, looking at aspects like new feature applicability to education, compatibility with other products, the effect of this on the 'digital divide', cost to install, ease of installation and ease of use amongst others. Becta released two interim reports at BETT07, which caused great interest in the computer media. This year, at BETT08, they have published a follow-up report on Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 and on document interoperability which analyses the suitability of both software packages for adoption by schools and colleges.
In essence the report recommends against schools adopting Vista or Office 2007 at present, and recommends the use of the proprietary Microsoft document formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt etc) to avoid incompatibility issues between Office 2007, other versions of Microsoft Office, and other proprietary or open-source office productivity applications which pupils may be using.
Oakleigh is pleased to have been instrumental in this research and hopes the report will help educational establishments in developing their strategies in this key area.
Becta press release – http://tinyurl.com/3ysn75
The full report – http://tinyurl.com/2ohmzg
BETT is the world’s largest educational technology event. It is held in London, England. BETT08 website - http://www.bettshow.com/