[aklug] Re: Zangle info

Need for SIS has not been the issue. BRT showed that ASD preset
selection criteria to exclude whole range of applications. Also ASD
underestimated some costs and hid others. All ASD eggs in one basket
with no failover, ASD bandwidth maxed out and servers in room with
inability to keep temps low enough. And the product still doesn't
offer a fraction of what was promised for a variety of reasons.
Jeff Wood tried to do same PC thing at ASD - but once Apple went to OS
X users weren't having it.

On Jan 28, 2010, at 5:13 PM, Tim Gibney <timgibney76@gmail.com> wrote:

> This is nothing.
>
> My wife was a teacher in a school district in California (I wont
> provide names here) where they blew $30,000,000 to replace all the
> macs with gateway pc's. It turns out one of the new superintendents
> at the district just happened to be on Gateway's board of directors.
> What a strange coincidence?
>
> They also switched to Zangle. Be at least glad they use Unix and
> Macs still at ASD unlike other districts that had nice sales deals
> with Windows OEMs.
>
> Schools all have Zangle mouse pads and pens which sounds like the
> salesmen made quite an impression. Businesses work the same way with
> sales and contacts which is why executives make so much money. Its
> who they know rather than how well they can work. Inside sales do
> wonders.
>
> In Zangle's defense the product does work and works well. Automation
> and data storage can save tens of millions and increase
> productivity. Its a nightmare to track attendance for every student
> and reporting attendance for No Child Left Behind committees. If
> Zangle meets the districts needs best then it should be used.
>
> I find it odd that a Windows client needs to be installed rather
> than having it all web based, but I bet C-innovations can make more
> money if they charge per seat licensing as well with the client.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 3:44 PM, Arthur Corliss <acorliss@nevaeh-linux.org
> > wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Jan 2010, Marc Grober wrote:
>
> > Zangle is a proprietary offering of C-innovations
> > see, http://www.cinnov.com/products_overview.htm
> > It was purchased after the ASD IT Budget Review Team objected and
> after members
> > of the BRT refuted the claims of the consultants then hired to
> address the BRT's
> > objections. See http://asdtech.wik.is
> >
> > Zangle at ASD is apparently based on one web server and one mSSQL
> server. All
> > web based data which includes for example all attendance for every
> student must
> > be reported via the web engine.
> >
> > It turned out that the admin zangle client is only pc based and
> there is no web
> > access, so ASD had to implement a windows terminal server to
> provide school
> > admins and registrars on Macs access to the pc client on the
> windows term servers
> >
> > Most parents I have spoken to are disgusted with the expenditure
> of the millions
> > of dollars with no benefit as yet to them, and attendance etc is
> still not real
> > time.
> >
> > While SpEd records was intended to be included in the SIS, it was
> not, so SpEd
> > records continues to maintain and expand multiple FileMaker Pro
> servers for
> > which they purchased a web front end which they apparently have
> been unable to
> > implement.... yes, another disaster....
> >
> > The zangle PM is Mary McKean whose claim to fame is certainly not
> IT matters,
> > she WAS an asst. principal that ASD moved to PM when the prior PM,
> who the BRT
> > pointed out was NOT qualified, was let go..... Mary couldn't carry
> the prior
> > PM's brief case IT cred wise. The ASD zangle progress site was
> apparently
> > discontinued when folk started asking questions about zangle. My
> personal
> > attempts to obtain specific data on zangle implementation details
> were largely
> > obstructed by ASD (they provided completely obscure and
> meaningless responses
> > and have now refused to consider appeals re document requests...
> I decided not
> > to bother litigating same as apparently the public is in love with
> the Board and
> > the administration and the public deserves what it wants, after
> all....
> >
> > Need to know more?
>
> Thanks for being the watch dog on this, Marc. ASD is clearly
> incompetent in
> nearly every aspect of education, and this shows their incompetence
> goes
> beyond even that.
>
> Some day this town won't consider education to be the third rail of
> local
> politics and we'll be able to hold people accountable.
>
> --Arthur Corliss
> Live Free or Die
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Received on Thu Jan 28 18:00:32 2010