There has been much discussion at all levels about how schools can do better with their ICT curriculum in terms of student learning, teacher training and funding of ICT equipment.  There has also been discussion on how the ICT industry could be expected to help in this process although the results of these conversations have mostly turned out to be complaints and grief!  One seminar at the Tai Tokerau Principals Conference (Day 1/Session 2) will attempt to address these objectives but from a perspective that is considered to be too obvious to be stated and as such is never talked about and applied.  This view is 180 degree away from the traditional view point, and is:  "How do schools contribute to the continuous evolution of our society in terms of information, communication and collaboration, and to the ICT industry as a driver of this aspect of social evolution?"  This seminar will provide a brief history of technology, the current state of technology, and where technology is headed as the background information.  The seminar will attempt to identify some fundamental flaws that have hindered the progress of a real educational agenda and will offer a few hints for principals to take away.

We are living in the "information age".  There is no formal definition of when the information age began with the most convenient criterion being the invention of personal computers that have changed way we do things and improved our use of time possibly by a hundred fold.  The emergence of Google as a search engine is impressive but most people are not aware that Google has a 9 to 1 chance of replacing Microsoft and IBM simultaneously as the de facto leader of the information age within a decade.  Our education system has become more commercialised than previously.  Are we doing better or worse as a result?  ICT provides a good test.  Is ICT a commodity tool for the school or a mechanism now leading the evolution of society?  Why do some schools purchase equipment based on price alone or supplier relationships and ignore the big picture of education?  These questions may be controversial but they are not if we understand the big picture.  Feel free to comment to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

In terms of computer systems, there are 3 major camps of vendors.  According to the Survey Report prepared for the 2020 Communications Trust published in November 2005, 91% of secondary schools have purchased PC's based on Intel or AMD technologies, and 7% have bought Apple Mac.  Apple Mac has been renowned for its graphical interface but is losing attraction to a much bigger community of technology developers namely Intel and AMD in recent years.  Mac is now using Intel technology and can run Windows XP.  So the spot light shows the race is now between Intel and AMD only.  Intel is the predominant vendor.  It has achieved this position by strong R&D capabilities and well funded marketing. Its Pentium 4 is now accepted as a poor product but its U$500 million marketing spend has given it a firm position in the market.  Nevertheless, Intel has lost about 10% of its market share to AMD in the last year as a result of some very strong showings from AMD based computer systems.  Lately Intel has announced a new technology called Core to replace Pentium 4.  There is published benchmark data that shows Core is well ahead of K8 technologies from AMD.  Will this latest announcement reverse the position of technology leadership?  Compucon has been collecting information on a worldwide basis and has been keeping the Compucon channel up to date for the last 10 years.  On this occasion, we attach a Power Point file in PDF format on this subject matter for your reference.  Please be aware that the information is very technically involved, but offers some view points.  Please exercise your judgement.  Feel free to discuss its contents with the This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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The report of survey results on 135 secondary schools published in November 2005 shows that 40% of respondents buy ICT equipment with purchase price as the main criteria, and only 7% buy after considering the total cost of ownership over time (TCO).  Another 31% buy on a perceptive criterion called "reliability" or "quality".  These findings are a real cause for concern and indicate a lack of understanding of the state of ICT equipment development.  People buy on price when the product is a commodity.  Is ICT equipment a commodity? Up to 100 years ago, we had chief water officers and chief electricity officers to take care of the supply of water and electricity when the respective technologies were in the development stage.  The two products have since taken at least 50 years each to become fully established, standardised and unified to become real commodities.  Now we have chief information officers, chief technology officers, IT manages and IS administrators etc.  What do they do if they believe information and technology equipment are commodities?  They are employed to manage information and tools based on their professional knowledge.  They are not employed to buy on price, since anyone can do this.  Purchase price is the single most obvious input into the purchase process.  Is price alone more important than the total cost of ownership?  Obviously not but why?  Purchase price is about 20% of the total cost of ownership.  If price is the most important, then TCO is more than most important and there is not such a state.  Therefore price cannot be the most important.  The media and many suppliers have not helped because they are the people suggesting that price is most important simply because it is the easiest for them to sell on price.  Unfortunately, up to 40% of decision makers in secondary schools have fallen into their trap.  This behaviour must change especially for institutes that are created to educate our next generations.

Compucon New Zealand has updated three (3) system models to raise the performance headroom and lower the total cost of ownership for clients.  The 1st model is an upgrade of the single Pentium based 1U rack mount system to add support for Dual Core Pentium D and Pentium EE CPUs.  The 2nd model is an upgrade of the Dual Opteron Vanadium Server to two on-board SCSI channels and an optional Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI 2.0).  The 3rd model is an upgrade of the Dual Opteron Vanadium Workstation to include PCI-X slots that are the standard for high end computing.  Both Vanadium systems can be supplied in pedestal form or 5U rack mount.  This round of upgrades is evolutionary and has maintained as much consistency with the previous versions as the economy of technology has allowed.  Compucon New Zealand always stays at the forefront of technologies that are mature and proven for business use.