In a new study from across the Atlantic Ocean, open source software is compared to that produced by Microsoft in an educational setting. It seems only natural that the study was funded by Microsoft.

Seventy-three schools were used in this evaluation, located in six countries. The expected result was that while open source was much less expensive to deploy, those schools that used Microsoft products spent less time and money managing and maintaining the machines.

The original article states a possible problem with the study. Although the testing was done in more than one country, none of the included countries was in the U.K. The article cites another study conducted by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency in 2005, where the outcome came from a survey of 48 schools, consisting of 15 that used open source software exclusively. The reported savings was from 20 to 50 percent.

Now it seems that that study cannot be verified, and no schools in the U.K. are found to be using open source software. The specious nature of this is explained by a recent agreement between the U.K. Dept. of Education and MS. This ’sponsorship’ is causing a furor among those aware of the deal, who claim the deal was struck simply to stifle the use of free software in that nation.

Also mentioned is the greater satisfaction of those using MS Office compared to Open Office. [Features found useful to many in the survey, apparently were not in the revision of Open Office when the survey began, however, became available at the conclusion. This also stresses the simple, and low cost update method of this open source program, which has a much more frequent upgrade cycle than the Microsoft product.]

Possibly true, but since the objective of the study was to prove cost effectiveness, this claim is moot. Perhaps after the recent accords between Microsoft and several Linux vendors, further study will be unnecessary.

Tags: microsoft, open source software, u.k., europe, british educational communications and technology agency