TECH: SchoolVista vs. Naked Win95 vs. ?

[Bonnie Fulmer <GBF1@MARISTB.MARIST.EDU>]

     I am on the technology committee for my 9-12 high school
building of 500 students.  We have been running a Novell
network with Iclass for the last four years, and it is time
to upgrade our server.  Our tech-experts have told us that Iclass
is incompatible with Windows 95 applications, and we now must
decide whether to use School Vista on our new network or
whether to install Windows 95 on every computer.  Some downsides
of School Vista are its high initial software costs and its metaphoric
GUI that seems contrived at the secondary level and doesn't fit
our school-to-work objectives.  However, we are tremendously
concerned about security issues with naked Win95, and have been
advised that although this route is cheaper upfront, we will
probably have to hire someone full-time to deal with software
maintenance issues.  We also probably will have to purchase
ancillary software like Fortres and Winstall (?), which will
push the ultimate price back up in the SchoolVista neighborhood.
     I'd appreciate any advice you have to share.  How big
is your network?  How old is it?  What netware do you use?  What do
you like about it?  Have you horror stories to share?  Do we have
alternatives to these two scenarios?  Thank you SO much for
any advice you can give in this scary, expensive decision!

                     ||~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~||
                     ||        Bonnie | Fulmer       ||
                     ||   Spackenkill | High School  ||
                     ||    112 Spack- | enkill Road  ||
                     || Poughkeepsie, | NY   12603   ||
                     ||  voice: (914) | 463-7810     ||
                     ||    fax: (914) | 463-7817     ||
                     ||   gbf1@maristb.marist.edu    ||
                     ||______________/\______________||

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