[Technical] Interestingcomputers-in-education

[Con Zymaris]

On Sun, Aug 07, 2005 at 11:26:06AM +1000, Stephen Digby DEET wrote:
> Remember Microbee ?? 

Remember? I still have one ;-)

23 years old and it still works.

> I think an Australian OS developed for the education market and linked to HW.
> Got quite a foothold in WA and a few other places until it was overwhelmed.

And were exported to Sweden and a dozen other countries.

> 
> Amazing to think what could happen if Australian Governement thought of all government expenditures as part of an industry
> development fund.....

You mean the government which doesn't link procurement policy to industry 
development, to boost the local industry, in fact the opposite? 

You mean the government which has reduced its spending on Australian 
products and services to just a few percept of its $5 billion annual spend
on ICT?

You mean the government which has somehow established the following 
two dozen barriers to entry which keeps Australian ICT firms out of the 
market for government purchasing?

 http://www.infoage.idg.com.au/index.php/id;1626996924;fp;16;fpid;0   

There's a reason why our country has a $19 billion hole in our ICT trade 
deficit - and spending a billion dollars per year on Microsoft software is 
only part of it. 

Remember, we're all party to the national debt repayment plan for the 
billions we're splurging ;-)

No volume of slick multinational vendor marketing should make you forget
this.

___________________________________________________________________________
Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne, Australia 
Cybersource: Australia's Leading Linux and Open Source Solutions Company 
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