UK Schools Told to Avoid Vista

The British government’s schools computer agency has advised schools not to install Microsoft’s Vista operating system within the next 12 months.

The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency believes that there are no new essential features with the systems and that technical and financial issues involved with its deployment make it a high-risk strategy.

The advice was issued by Tom McMullan, a technical consultant at the agency, at the BETT education trade show in London. The agency also advised against the use of Office 2007, which is being launched alongside Vista. It acknowledged the new features of Office 2007 but said most of them were only useful in the private sector.

Earlier in January the agency renewed its Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft for another year. Schools receive discounts of between 20% and 37% on Microsoft’s software products.