Here's another reason the Regents should expand their Mobile Computing Initiative to all South Dakota campuses around the student-purchase model rather than the student-lease model: when the university leases the computers, the whole batch can get delayed. Last year, Gateway managed to botch delivery of 500 Tablet PCs to DSU, making a minor mess of the first week of classes. This year, Gateway/MPC (Gateway sold its Business, Government, and Education units to Idaho-based MPC last October) has blown it again. Shipment delayed, freshmen and seniors left hanging...
...and DSU fed up enough to switch its business to Fujitsu! Consider: Gateway knows for a year the order is coming and still can't meet deadline. Fujitsu gets maybe a month's notice, and they may have the computers in DSU's hands next week. Good choice, DSU! (But remember: we could save the university a lot of trouble by leaving it to students to purchase their own machines....)
DSU isn't the only state institution finally shedding their Gateway goggles. As Gateway dissolves into MPC and Acer, the Legislature is looking at switching to Tablet PCs from Hewlett Packard. The minutes of last week's LRC Executive Board meeting (PDF alert!) report that the LRC's Computer Technology Subcommittee has recommended moving to the HP2730 Tablet PC. The specs say the HP2730 can operate at –20 °F... maybe not a bad option for a Legislative session in January and February! The HP2730 also has a webcam—Representative Noem, I want live video blogging from the House floor!
Just a point of order here, the reason the computers are being leased to the students is because of software licensing issues. Here at tech we are only able to get certain types of software through the university (design packages). They do not sell educational versions. So in this case, the only method of getting the necessary software (legally) was to require leasing of computers so they are technically university property and can be covered in the lease. I expect DSU is running into similar issues?
ReplyDeleteGood point, Tony. When the school makes the purchase, it can load the computers with the software it deems essential. But DSU also makes Office 2007 and maybe some other software available separately to grad students (who aren't required to lease Tablets) at a very reasonable price. Of course, Tablet or know, I'm still being required by one course to spring for Endnote ($120).
ReplyDeleteThe Regents' MCI task Force touched on this issue at their April 18 meeting:
"When discussing the implications of a lease vs. purchase program, representatives noted that parents often prefer to have the campus provide the necessary support to the students. Having to assume the burden associated with repair and support simply adds an additional level of responsibility that they would prefer to assign to campus technology support staff. This also
raised concerns about acquisition of software for students in programs that require extensive software applications that place a significant financial burden on students to acquire on their own. In response, campus CIO’s noted that the market place is beginning to address such problems by offering “Cloud Applications” that can be purchased at an institutional or system level. A suite of applications can be made available on the internet for access to an identified number of students. Another issue is identifying the appropriate students and providing the necessary security required."
To be fair, the computers are ordered in July. If I was ordering a batch of 500 computers and it only took a month and a half to deliver, I'd be pretty happy with a deliver time a month and a half. DSU never knows how many tablets they need because of late registrations, etc, so they wait until the last minute to order... A better solution would be to order a number they know they would use (ie, 400) at an early date then order the rest later.
ReplyDeleteA well functioning computer company turns inventory at least once a day. A week is a long time since the prices for components change daily. A company knows how many systems they can build due to assembly line capacities and component availability since the suppliers are contracted to be able to supply so many parts any given day even thoug the company hasn't bought them. Not having the systems built and shipped on time shows a major failure in the operations side of the company. Companies that don't operate well don't last long. MPC has no excuse for not being able to honor a order they accpeted. Maybe if they made sure their new Mexico manufacturing plant was functional before shutting down their Nashville plant they wouldn't be stuck unable to fullfill orders for over a month.
ReplyDeleteThe tablets are leased by DSU. The students pay a Board of Regents fee to use them. This fee is part of the student’s financial aid package. They get to use a computer for their entire stay at DSU and pay for it out of their financial aid. If they were allowed to just buy their own computers and bring them to campus – a horrifying nightmare to support – then they would have to finance them privately. For most students, having it as part of their financial aid is much cheaper in terms of repayment and interest.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind that at most universities the fee that is paid for the laptop and technology programs is not just to pay for the laptop. I’m guessing DSU is no different. The fee usually pays for staff (who order the computers, set them up, repair them, order parts for them, help people at the help desk, etc.). The fee pays for the software – and not just the software on the tablets, but also for Microsoft licensing for all the staff and servers on campus. The fee pays for the servers and wireless equipment needed to handle several thousand laptops on campus and the staff to setup, run, and maintain that equipment. And the fee pays for equipment, furniture, and help desk management software at the help desk. If the students were buying their own laptops privately they would still have to pay a technology fee to cover all those other software and help desk expenses.
And at DSU any student can buy a cheap copy of Office – but that license is paid for as part of the campus licensing that the tablet fee pays for. You wouldn’t be able to buy that Office disk so cheap if DSU wasn’t paying tens of thousands of dollars for the Microsoft licensing program – or you maybe you could but you would be paying into a technology fee that contributes to that license.
Before Gateway was sold to Acer (GW consumer division) and MPC (GW business and education division), the tablets came from a company called Quanta (and the E-295 that MPC is selling still does). Quanta is the uber-huge laptop fab in Taiwan that makes laptops for just about everybody (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanta_Computer). A designer and engineer from Gateway would work on the pilot\beta tablet and send the design specs to Quanta. Quanta then built a few and tested them and if they seemed to work they would order the hardware (MB, KB, CD, memory, etc.), build the plastic molds for the case and screen and internals, then build a few more and tweak the manufacturing process. Then they start casting the molded parts en masse and assembling everything. They stick a Gateway logo on it at the end and Gateway sells the product without ever actually touching one (although they do have people who create the clone image to put on the hard drives once the hardware is finalized and they test drivers, etc.). The tablets came directly from Taiwan to DSU.
ReplyDeleteQuanta ran into issues with the BIOS and the screen glass last year (summer 2007) thus could not ship in time to get the tablets out to all Gateway’s customers. Gateway, in turn, has been a failing business for quite some time and that leads to credit issues which can prove problematic in the fall when all your educational customers and students want to buy a ton of computers all at the same time.
This year no one knows exactly what slowed down the shipping of Gateway tablets and laptops to K12 and the universities – other than “supply issues” and “production problems.” It is speculated that it is partially just plain bad planning on the part of MPC (who still orders some of their computers, like the E-295, from Acer\Gateway\Quanta).
Gateway can’t preorder machines from fabs like Quanta because you have to be able to sell the entire run when they fab a batch of machines for you. If you order too many and you can’t sell them then you lose a lot of money. And it doesn’t help that a manufacturer can’t order if they don’t have any money. A Purchase Order from a school like DSU serves as proof that you have the money and you are going to pay for your order from Quanta. DSU and other state institutions CANNOT ORDER UNTIL AFTER THE NEW YEAR STARTS and the money hits the accounts, meaning that it is mid July before they can start ordering things. This normally doesn’t affect government agencies too badly, but since schools sometimes need to make large purchases before school starts (and they don’t have the money to make such large purchases with the previous fiscal year budget {or they are not allowed too}) they can get into a pinch if there is even a tiny delay between when they order in mid July and when the product actually arrives.
Fujitsu is a very large company. They make their own products (despite what the inaccurate Wikipedia article says). Like Dell and other large, successful manufacturers they can handle large orders and they can build up stock to prepare for the fall rush. This makes them prime candidates for schools on tight timeframes.
Fujitsu has also been making tablets for over 20 years. They have gone through all the growing pains and experimentation that that Gateway and other are experiencing right now with their tablets. Since Fujitsu doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to tablet systems they can offer more for your money and they have less manufacturing woes (thus less technical support woes on the customer’s end).