The overall evidence points to a significant number of issues that need to be addressed before Vista should be considered for deployment in educational institutions the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) report noted, adding: Becta has not yet been able to identify any realistic justification for the early adoption of Office 2007 across the educational ICT estate.

As part of a wide-ranging review of Microsoft’s academic licensing and potential alternatives (see separate story) Becta commissioned Oakleigh Consulting to help examine the potential advantages of upgrading to Windows Vista and Office 2007, but found little to recommend the new software.

Oakleigh advised Becta that there were no ‘must have’ features in Vista. They also advised that about 60% of new functionality was either ‘should have’ or ‘could have’. The remaining 40% of the new features were assessed as either ‘wait’ or of no discernible value, the report noted.

Oakleigh did not identify any ‘must have’ features in Office 2007. About 40% of the identified features were considered ‘should have’ or ‘could have’. Some 60% of the new functionality in Office 2007 was categorized by Oakleigh as ‘wait’ or of no value to education, it added.

Oakleigh also found that a number of Office alternatives, including Corel Wordperfect Office X3, Openoffice.org, StarOffice, Easy Office, One SE and Lotus SmartSuite, offered about 50% of the functionality of the Office 2007 suite but that this 50% included functionality that met or exceeded basic requirements in relation to word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation development.

Even if schools or colleges are tempted by the new software, their hardware will be unlikely to run it, according to the report. It found that at the very most, only 6% of current educational computers could run Vista with the Aero graphics engine turned on, while 55% of current computers could not even run Vista with Aero tuned off.

The study also found that the cost to a typical primary school of deploying Vista would be £4,000 ($7,732), compared to £25,000 ($48,327) for a secondary school, while the cost to a typical primary school of deploying Office 2007 would be £4,000, compared to £26,000 ($50,260) for a secondary school, although economies of scale could result from deploying both together.

As if that was not enough criticism, the report also suggested that Microsoft’s choice of the Open Office XML file formats in Office 2007 has the potential to exacerbate ‘digital divide’ issues as a result of the format not being in use on other products.

While Becta noted Microsoft’s recent decision to support the OpenDocument Format, which is also used in OpenOffice, StarOffice and others, it warned that schools and colleges should only deploy Office 2007 when its interoperability with alternative products is satisfactory.

The overall advice on Vista was even worse, from Microsoft’s perspective. Early deployment is considered extremely high risk and strongly recommended against, Becta stated. On the basis of current understanding, the total cost of deployment is significant, the risks are high, and the benefits are far from clear.

Microsoft did not respond to request for comment by press time.