Last week, I posted about switching to Ubuntu. Many of those reasons are also reasons for colleges to switch to open source software. Universities spend lots of money each year on proprietary software (e.g., Microsoft Operating Systems, Microsoft Office Suites, Anti-virus software, Course Management software, and networking software.) Universities pay a fee per machine (often each year if they’re leasing). Cost savings for switching to adequate open source software could be enormous.
This Chronicle article has an interesting discussion on the costs of paying for Microsoft software. The article notes that Creighton University (a college with just under 5,000 students) pays $70,000-$80,000 a year just on Microsoft products.
The chart below (from the same article) gives you some idea of what it might cost a University to get a Microsoft bundle.
| COMPARING MICROSOFT’S ACADEMIC LICENSES | |
| Here are estimated prices for a bundle of software — including one copy each of the current versions of the Windows operating system, Office Professional, Front Page, Publisher, Visual Studio Professional, and the Core client-access license — under four Microsoft academic-licensing plans. Even a couple of dollars’ difference between two prices adds up when institutions pay for several thousand licenses for faculty and staff members. | |
| Type of license | Estimated retail price (per machine or per FTE) |
| Perpetual agreements | |
| Academic Retail | $557.85* |
| Academic Open 6.0 | $381.00 |
| Academic Select 6.0 | $305.00 |
| Annual leases | |
| Campus Agreement 3.0 | |
| Level A (Fewer than 3,000 FTE) | $57.00 per year+ |
| Level B (At least 3,000 FTE) | $53.00 per year+ |
| *Excludes the Core client-access license, or CAL. | |
| +Includes Core CAL, which includes the CAL for the SharePoint Portal Server but not the SQL Server CAL. | |
| Retail, Open, and Select pricing is per machine (1,000 computers were used in the example price). | |
| Campus Agreement pricing is per full-time equivalents (faculty and staff FTE’s were used in the example price). | |
| Note: Purchases made through Academic Retail, Academic Open, and Academic Select programs provide rights to use only the specific product version purchased. For upgrades, users must pay for Software Assurance — an annual payment to Microsoft for product upgrades — or buy a new product license. Inherent in the Campus Agreement program are rights throughout the term of the lease to upgrade all of the products covered under the lease. | |
| Sources: Microsoft Corporation; Chronicle reporting | |
There is already loads of interesting stuff out there that discusses this issue, so I won’t belabor the point here.I will, however, link to a few interesting articles.
This article discusses open source course management software.
This article focuses mainly on how open source software can save community colleges money, but these considerations seem like they should be reasons for any college.
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