Enterprise Software Solutions tells school customers: We are moving to 3-year licensing contracts and so are you
- Reference: 1637063229
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/11/16/enterprise_software_solutions_tells_school/
- Source link:
Sold in [2]December for £400m , ESS has become part of the same group as ParentPay, run by CEO Mark Brant, who wrote to school customers last week.
"We trust you are beginning to enjoy a more settled academic year," the letter seen by The Reg states. "The pandemic has had an impact on all of us, especially pupils and those responsible for their learning and development. As we closely return to our normal routines, it is time to share updates from within ESS and explain the simple actions for you to continue using SIMS - the UK's leading MIS [management information system] for schools."
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For the uninitiated, SIMS (school information management system) is a client server architecture, with a back-end built on Microsoft SQL Server. The business logic is managed by a tailor-made .NET Framework module and the client application is also constructed with .NET. It was released in 1984.
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As of October 2020, between 70-80 per cent of UK schools use SIMS though this represents a fall in market share from 80-90 per cent from October 2017, according to [6]data provided to the Competition and Markets Authority when it was considering the sale of ESS to Montagu.
The letter reminded customers that ESS is now part of the ParentPay "family", and the new owners are committed to "invest many millions into the future of SIMS. We are now actively preparing to deliver new and enhanced features for SIMS."
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"We will also bring greater consistency and focus on our communications and training material, enabling you to extract the maximum benefit from SIMS."
And then came the talk of "Moving to three-year contracts" and attempts to justify it by describing the delivery of "best-in-class solutions and increased value to users."
"[W]e are making changes to your SIMS Annual Entitlement plan. We are extending the length of the agreement to three years, giving you the certainty of a fixed cost for the first year and a capped price increase for years two and three. The revised agreement provides full access to the enhancements we're making to SIMS, including the 'Next Gen' software feature sets. These improvements to SIMs will be available at no extra cost."
[8]Microsoft touts Windows 11 SE: A locked-down OS to give Chromebooks a run for their money in schools
[9]EU digital rules must consider anti-competitive licensing terms, say cloud sellers
[10]Microsoft suspends free trials for Windows 365 after a day due to 'significant demand'
[11]UK schools slap a hold on facial scanning of children amid fierce criticism
[12]Computer scientists at University of Edinburgh contemplate courses without 'Alice' and 'Bob'
The letter isn't explicit about the new features but mentions helping schools and school groups "transform" the way they use MIS; "redefine how they leverage data"; and allowing users to be "enabled 'anywhere, anytime' [to] access to school MIS."
These new features are expected to be in place by "early 2022", the letter states.
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One techie contact at a school that uses SIMS said the move to three-year agreement was an "ill-advised". He said schools are more willing to use cloud alternatives and were given by more flexibility on supplier choice by Local Authorities.
Others leapt onto the Edugeek community forum to voice their displeasure at being asked to move to longer contracts, with many saying they only want to renew it for 12 months amid plans to move to a new MIS. The chatter on the forum spreads across [14]six pages .
"That is incredibly poor. We don't want to sign up to a three-year commitment. Doing so would require us to go to full tender due to the value of the contract," said user localzuk.
In response, paulkerton said: "Well, there would be a certain irony to a company deciding to push everyone to a multi-year contract in order to try and secure themselves ending up forcing everyone into a competitive tender situation rather than their actual intention to keep their market monopoly."
Another said they were informed that if their portal process under the renewal was not complete by 1st February, "an agreement will be generated for existing products with a 3 year term."
"They're attempting to lock schools into a three year contract, with no apparent option for renewing for the standard (12 months) term. For many schools that puts the contract over the tender threshold and requires them to compare the incumbent to alternative providers (Bromcom, Arbor, etc)," added localzuk.
The Competition and Market Authority frowns upon aggressive renewal tactics. Earlier this year it rapped the knuckles of the antivirus vendor community, specifically [15]McAfee and [16]Norton , and put [17]guidelines in place .
However, ESS contracts relate to schools and so are not classed as consumer contracts, meaning the laws that the CMA enforces do not apply here.
We asked ESS, CEO Brant and the Department for Education to comment. ®
Get our [18]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/14/capita_sells_ess_to_montagu/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/14/capita_sells_ess_to_montagu/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YZPjvaBy5UQjNH2glLq12QAAAA4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YZPjvaBy5UQjNH2glLq12QAAAA4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YZPjvaBy5UQjNH2glLq12QAAAA4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6123ca47d3bf7f63a906879d/Montagu.ParentPay_-_Full_text_decision.pdf
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YZPjvaBy5UQjNH2glLq12QAAAA4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/10/microsoft_windows_11se/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/26/microsoft_oracle_cloud_costs/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/04/windows_365_trials_suspended/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/26/uk_schools_canteen_facial_recog/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/15/computer_scientist_terminology/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YZPjvaBy5UQjNH2glLq12QAAAA4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/224774-ess-sims-3-year-contracts.html
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/25/uk_cma_mcafee_refunds/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/14/norton_cma/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/19/cma_antivirus/
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Just waving potentially new features without specifics is meaningless and cannot justify extending to a minimum contract term of 3years.
If I was a decision maker at a school I would immediately start looking for alternatives.
Outrageous the way these dodgy companies work.
Found a brewers company purportedly being from a town place, Product not even from the town place and listed with multiple different addresses from different states, same business name, same person. Fake.
When will companies realise that trying to convert customers into hostages will never work in the medium to long term.
Sure if you want to tank a product and want short term gain then it might work, but that is all.
>>if you want to tank a product
Looking at the state of SIMS now this may well be ESS master plan.
It will probably cost so much to undo years of bodges and refactor it into something useable(?) and maintainable that it will be cheaper to scrap it and replace with something else. Forcing the 3 year commitment may(unlikely but a bean counter might consider the proposition) raise enough capital to fund said redo from start + data migration tools....
more likely thats what they will claim will happen (indeed are with their jam tomorrow promises) but the reality will be SIMS festering for another 10 years till they get the bottle to scrap it with no migration plan (much easier when there are fewer schools around to complain).
Shorter Montagu/ESS:
I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further.
Sims is an awfully outdated product. Some of it is still based on Pascal and Dbase I believe!!
It makes you wonder why they didn't just start again with a modern framework but they seem to have built on top of the legacy code over and over again to the point where it is impossible to upgrade.
Our school moved away from Sims years ago, we saw this coming.
Fame at last...
Complaining. Exactly what I want my 10 seconds of fame to be for.
former Capita-owned biz, now under control of Montagu Private Equity
This is what gets me - that anybody could ever look at a supplier and say "hmmm, formerly owned by capita, now owned by private equity firm........ yes I think I'll sign a contract with them as I'm sure it'll be excellent value and nothing will go wrong..............."
Schools still use this crap?
I'm amazed, I thought it was on it's way out when I stopped working in education IT back in 2007 - having to apply patches to a DOS based system then seemed outdated but half the modules still ran that way!
There isn't a lot of choice in the market though.
Often schools don't have a choice - determined by the LEA / MAT
Sometimes schools may use a different system but some things need to be done in SIMS by the LEA.
Breaking up is hard to do
The real problem is the cost of changing to a new system. The legacy data on thousands of students and staff will require to be imported into the new database. SIMS is mostly undocumented from a user point of view, you used to need a developer licence to access the complete database.
I guess RM will collect quite a few SIMS leavers, if you have to have a three year contract, it will make most institutions look at the alternatives, far more than the usual cursory look, and worry about the retraining costs, data transfer costs. Though SIMS is a bit crap, it's the crap every member of staff has to know at some level or another. Many schools use the add on modules for Timetabling, parent communications,registers,rewards,discipline,staff appraisals,catering and Wisepay etc.
It will be interesting to see how many schools jump ship, though I'm sure migration will be a very expensive pain in the arse.
One of the better aspects of SIMS was the training department, pity most of the experienced trainers were made redundant for the sale.
Leaving SIMS is not easy
The real problem is the cost of changing to a new system. The legacy data on thousands of students and staff will require to be imported into the new database. SIMS is mostly undocumented from a user point of view, you used to need a developer licence to access the complete database.
I guess RM will collect quite a few SIMS leavers, if you have to have a three year contract, it will make most institutions look at the alternatives, far more than the usual cursory look, and worry about the retraining costs, data transfer costs. Though SIMS is a bit crap, it's the crap every member of staff has to know at some level or another. Many schools use the add on modules for Timetabling, parent communications,registers,rewards,discipline,staff appraisals,catering and Wisepay etc.
It will be interesting to see how many schools jump ship, though I'm sure migration will be a very expensive pain in the arse.
One of the better aspects of SIMS was the training department, pity most of the experienced trainers were made redundant for the sale.
ESS continues where crapita left off? Shocked I tell you; my ghast is flabbered.
I am sure my Business Manager might be a trifle miffed at this development... Icon represents her probable reaction.
SIMS is, currently, a steaming pile of ordure; each time you use it you are reminded just how fresh that excrement is!
It has seen virtually no development since inception - Crapita (now ESS) preferring to milk thier bond slaves for every penny in their budgets rather than develop a useable, modern application.
Hey ho - interesting times!