[WinMac] Macs & Windows in schools
Subject: [WinMac] Macs & Windows in schools
From: Rick Kent (Maverick[at]maverickmedia.com)
Date: Sun Jan 06 2002 - 12:06:43 EST
I need a little help with an issue of Macs & PCs in mixed network
academic environments. I am looking for the following:
1. Information links, unbiased research reports, mail lists, news
groups, etc. regarding mixed environment networks in schools (junior
high and high school, and possibly college). Your experience, if you
administer or work with such a network in an education environment,
would be particularly helpful. (If your school has gone all one way
or another, I would also like to know your experience.)
2. Market information with respect to Apple's school market: e.g.
current prevalence, sales market share, etc.
3. Demographic information with respect to Mac users vs PC users:
Income, Education, etc.
4. Anything else that might help support the position of maintaining
a mixed network, rather than shifting to an all PC network.
Please send any longer responses, or responses with attachments,
directly to me (rick@kentgroup.org) rather than burdening this list
server. Thank you.
BACKGROUND, if you are interested:
I am on the technology committee of my daughter's new high school.
There is a move afoot at the school to eliminate Macs, and switch to
an all PC network. Currently about two thirds of the roughly 170
computers are Macs, but they are apparently quite old-- I am trying
to get more specifics but apparently they are mostly vintage 7100
type machines.
The age of the Macs is not their biggest problem however. Apparently
they do not even run native Mac apps on those Macs. Not even an
email client. Everything is run through a pair of Citrix servers as
PC apps. Yes, they run PageMaker and Word as PC apps through the
Citrix servers to the Macs as clients. And yes, they are complaining
about performance. Not surprising since they are also pushing all
that Citrix stuff across a poorly configured, primarily 10 BaseT
network.
They have hired a consultant-- an MCSE of course who I don't think
has ever consulted for an educational institution before-- and he is
recommending eliminating the Macs-- what he refers to as a
"proprietary" platform-- to reduce costs and increase performance in
the long run. He is also recommending about $60K worth of new Dell
servers, including two $15K each servers which he says will serve as
"Citrix Load Balancing Servers". They already spent over $11K on a
new server for just the business office. Note that this is a school
of about 500 students and maybe less than 100 faculty and staff.
(Yes, he has also recommended spending up to $40K to upgrade the
network architecture, which between wiring closets is currently state
of the art, including optical fiber as well as Cat 5, but is hampered
by a patchwork of poorly integrated 10BaseT hubs in the closets and
peripherally. He has not been specific about what that $40K would be
spent on.)
This all seems to me like money over spent for the wrong things.
(They are buying the server equipment directly from Dell, so unless
there is some kind of consultant kickback program in Dell's
educational buying program, I don't think he is profiting directly
from this possible server overkill.) I cannot imagine why a network
of this size would need so much server power. On the surface it
seems they should modestly upgrade their NT servers, clean up all the
wiring closets with 100 BaseT switches & hubs (and optical switches
in key locations, since they already have the optical fiber in
place), and spend the rest of the money upgrading Macs & PCs for
faculty, staff, and student use.
But that is a gut feeling on my part, and I need more support,
especially unbiased factual information regarding the Macs in such an
educational environment.
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