All Macedonian students to use [Ubuntu] Linux desktops

[Conrad Knauer]

All Macedonian students to use Linux desktops
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7546509093.html

The One Laptop per Child's XO, better known as the $100 laptop, gets
most of the headlines but NComputing is showing in Macedonia, with its
Ubuntu Linux based servers and virtual PC terminals, that there's more
than one way to get inexpensive Linux desktops into students' hands.

[...]

NComputing's multi-user virtual desktop software and low-cost virtual
PC terminals, along with supporting Linux-based PCs, were proven in
Macedonia tests to deliver a rich PC experience at less than half the
cost of any other proposed solution, including low cost desktop and
laptop PCs and other thin client options, said Ivo Ivanovski,
Macedonia's Minister for the Information Society in a statement.

One advantage of going with NComputing is that with half the students
attending school in the morning, and half attending in the afternoon,
180,000 workstations will provide a 1-to-1 computing experience -- one
virtual PC at each student's desk -- for the country's entire public
school student population.

[...]

When completed, Macedonia's Computer for Every Child initiative will
have deployed approximately 160,000 NComputing virtual PC terminals
and 20,000 NComputing enabled PCs (which each also support a student
on the attached monitor) running Ubuntu. Besides Ubuntu 7.04, each
NComputing server/PC comes with NComputing's Terminal Server software
and OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Evolution, and Wine.

NComputing claims that the Macedonia project is at the same time, the
largest known thin client and desktop Linux deployment ever
undertaken. "This project would not have been possible 5 years ago,"
said Ivanovski. "Today's least expensive desktop PCs are so powerful
we use less than 10% of their capacity and NComputing's technology
puts this wasted power to work."

see also http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/09/can_a_hundred_u.html

"Macedonia has saved even more by running Ubuntu and other free
software. NComputing says that 40% of its overall customer base also
is using Linux. The 60% who use Windows tend to err on the side of
caution, buying a separate license for each user, but that's an easy
choice with Microsoft's cheap education licenses. Businesses are
playing for much higher stakes."