Radical Idea: Charge Vendors for Software Deployed in Schools

[ Thanks to An Anonymous Reader for this link. ]

"Rather than our public-sector education organisations paying for software, they should in fact not only get the software for free, they should actually be billing the software vendors for the right to place their wares and branding in front of millions of school students. Much like television and radio stations offer up a bidding system to advertisers who want to capture the eyes and ears of the 'audience', schools could operate a bidding process where vendors bid for accessing student's attention for their software.

"I couldn't get one single cogent answer from my audience as to why this wasn't a viable idea. The idea would not only reduce the software costs to our schools by hundreds of millions, but perhaps, with the right kind of negotiation, wipe out the costs to schools for much of their IT needs, as the vendors' payments might just cover the costs involved for hardware acquisitions, networking and support."

Complete Story

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