From a cardon-neutral perspective, it's difficult to argue against the findings of this report - if you think back to schools equipped just with text books just a generation ago, rather than ubiquitous IT and the required air conditioning.

The solution, according to Sirius Corporation, is a move away from the BECTA frameworks to leaner hardware and 'virtualised' network services. Traditional 'fat-client' workstations should be replaced by low-power 'thin-client' terminals. With flat screens and server consolidation power consumption could be reduced even further. Mark Taylor, CEO at Sirius Corporation said: "We realised that the computing model promoted by BECTA's frameworks is creating a massive energy-sink. “Most school's PCs spend their time idle. The hardware specified is just too powerful for the tasks required of school children. They're like an SUV for every child.

"The hardware requirements to run Windows Vista means these consumption figures will rise even futher." - now there's a frightening thought, Microsoft…

"Schools are using computers as room heaters which then need to be cooled using expensive air conditioning. Modern thin-client networks could reverse this trend and are available from the Open Source community and vendors of proprietary software today. You've got ask yourself why schools aren't deploying them?"

Ignoring thin clients, why don't we just go back to slide rules and chalk? It worked OK for previous generations. Maybe the environment will force us one day, when PCs become as expensive a luxury as cheap air-travel. One century from now, it's odd to think that the world is unlikely to be able to generate enough power to run the ICT we'd expect to see knocking about.

© 2006 PublicTechnology.net. Original article

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