very well said !! ditto
Paul Bearne -----Original Message----- From: Wayne Bollinger [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 19 December 2003 07:57 To: Subject: [e-smith-devinfo] Thank you Mitel! Christmas Greetings Everyone, Before this list shuts down, I want to express my gratitude to all of the Mitel employees who have worked so hard over the years to produce a simply amazing product. I am one of the many people who benefit from SME Server, without being able to purchase a ServiceLink subscription. Hopefully this will change someday. For now, in lieu of $, I hope this story will at least give the Mitel folks a warm feeling of "job well done". I use SME Server in "volunteer mode" to support a K-12 school that operates on an extremely tight technology budget. Three years ago the school was in the dark ages, technology-wise. I remember people running up and down the halls, yelling "Can I use the phone line now? I need to check email!". There was no network. They shuffled huge stacks of paper. They ran diskettes around to print and share files. I wanted to help, but was afraid the nightmare would only grow worse if a Windows server entered the scene. ;-) As a Linux fan, I discovered references to something called "e-smith" while searching the internet. Then came e-smith 4.1, installed on a donated 500MHz Celeron PC. I begged the cable company to bury a new cable run for free (they did). A cable modem combined with some Cat5 runs and e-smith began to revolutionize the way the school administration communicated with each other, the staff, and parents. Every year the school has acquired more donated computers through the IBM K-12 matching grants program. We still don't have a computer for every teacher, and we are still using equipment like AST laptops running Windows 95 with 16 Meg of memory - I kid you not. There have been many frustrations and hardware failures along the way, but the one thing I can always count on is e-smith (and our tape drive). e-smith is the glue that holds everything together, and allows us to stretch every dollar to the max for the benefit of the kids. At first I was horrified to read that Mitel was turning the SME Server developer release over to the community. I actually decided that I needed to resign as "Technology Coordinator" for the school. :) Of course, we have all witnessed a very carefully coordinated, professional handover to contribs.org. I don't know why I expected anything less. (By the way, many thanks to the contribs.org team as well...) To wrap this up: next year the school is moving 500 students from three separate rented buildings (three e-smith installs) into a new building, where everyone can sit together under one roof. Being able to use reliable, affordable technology has been critical in making this a reality. Although there are certain people pushing for a move to a Windows server - parents who have trouble understanding all the services provided by the e-smith platform - the principal knows a good thing when he sees it, and e-smith will continue to form the foundation of our technology program. I wouldn't use anything else. When e-smith goes, I go. THANK YOU Charlie, Gordon, Dan, Rich, Mike, Peter, and everyone else on the team. You guys are a class act. Merry Christmas and God Bless, -Wayne Bollinger -- Please report bugs to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] (only) to discuss security issues Support for registered customers and partners to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Searchable archive at http://www.mail-archive.com/devinfo%40lists.e-smith.org -- Please report bugs to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] (only) to discuss security issues Support for registered customers and partners to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Searchable archive at http://www.mail-archive.com/devinfo%40lists.e-smith.org
