Following its referral of Microsoft to the Office of Fair Trading (see November’s issue), the ICT agency Becta continues to put pressure on the US company, advising schools and colleges to be cautious when considering any large scale investment or deployment of Microsoft’s Vista or Office 2007.

These are the key messages from Becta’s latest report:

• Upgrading existing ICT systems to Microsoft Vista or Office 2007 is not recommended and mixed Windows-based operating environments should be avoided. However, Vista should be considered where new institution-wide ICT provision is being planned.
• No widespread deployment of Office 2007 should take place until schools and colleges are sure they have established mechanisms to deal with interoperability and potential digital divide issues as set out in the report.
• To ensure widest compatibility of files between different applications, users of Office 2007 should not save in Microsoft's new Office format, OOXML.
• Due to limitations in Microsoft's implementation of the Open Document Format (ODF) international standard, users should in the short term continue to save files in the more widely adopted formats.
• Pupils, staff and parents should be made aware of the wide range of free-to-use products currently available and given information on how to use and access them.
• The ICT industry should be facilitating easier access to free-to-use office productivity software.

www.becta.org.uk