Xandros launches education version

[Clint Tinsley]

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Corey Burger" <corey.burger at gmail.com>
> To: "Edubuntu Mailing List" <edubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Xandros launches education version
> Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 23:23:49 -0800
> 
> 
> Yes, this is technically not developer news, but with the recent work
> being done with DCCA (Matthew Garret with laptops and Ben Collins with
> the kernel), this might be another great target for sharing.
> 
> Anyway, the press release:
> 
> http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=107290
> 
> I think we beat them on pricing. Just a hunch. ;)
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Corey
> 
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I was an early adopter of Xandros, its one of the better distros, especially in the business environment. But it seems that in the last year, they have been pretty good at shooting themselves in the foot in their "show me the money" focus which even extended to bundling normal open-source "free" packages into their "Premium" subscription content.  I am talking about packages that were even free with Linspire.  I talked to one of the Xandros principals at LinuxWorld last fall and he sort of agreed that some of the things in the Premium content should have been freely available as part of the release version.

As to the Education version, they do bundle in XDMS, developed for the business community, which does help provide server side management/distribution of the desktop and have included that in the Education bundle so that needs to be considered.  Pretty resonable at "as low as $10 a seat" given all the connectivity features that Xandros provides out of the box plus its a "fat client" solution on the desktop so it doesn't need the server horsepower that a "thin client" solution would.  

But, Edubuntu remains a better solution and tailored to the education environment, and no licensing or subscription costs!

Clint