Cost Versus Value in the EdTech/IT World

Robert Fishtrom, Director of IT, Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District

Readers may be browsing available articles and wonder just what the heck this one is about. Well, many of us work in public education, an institution that is known for being historically underfunded. Often, when adopting/acquiring hardware and software, districts may look for the lowest price rather than truly understanding the difference between cost and value.

Significant purchases become e-waste in record time. Let me explain.

Chromebooks emerged on the scene in large numbers about 15 years ago. School districts jumped on board quickly, as they understood that Chromebooks were a great way to level the playing field and make technology available to every student, not to mention that Google has made it very simple to manage these devices at scale. But there are many different Chromebook manufacturers and the quality of Chrombooks vary. Instead of thinking, “What devices will last the longest for students?”, some organizations purchased the lowest-cost devices. Newsflash: you get what you pay for. Though the “cheap” devices cost less, do they last long? More often than not, the answer is NO. Low cost can often mean low value. Hence, the investment turns to e-waste in a relatively short period of time.

While revamping our video safety equipment at MVLA, we were deliberate with the features we desired in such an important system. NOTHING, I mean NOTHING, is more important than campus safety!

"Just because a price tag looks appealing, it might end up as e-waste or landfill before you know it. IT leaders need to know the difference between cost and value."

There are a LOT of camera manufacturers. The market is cutthroat and extremely competitive. The MVLA IT team worked with district and site leadership to establish a budget and “must-have” feature set. After extensive research and testing, we landed on Verkada - and we haven’t looked back.

Why Verkada?

For starters, their entire mission is physical security. Many other manufacturers sell more than just physical security – they may not invest in research and development the way Verkada does. Additionally, Verkada provides a 10-year warranty on ALL of its hardware and has flexible licensing models for organizations. Verkada integrates with other services we already use Microsoft Active Directory, Azure, Google, making the implementation relatively seamless. Lastly, the Verkada Command interface is user-friendly—all Verkada products work together and are accessible through a single pane of glass.

A neighboring district went through an RFP process for their video security system at the same time we adopted Verkada (late 2020). And guess what? The system did not integrate with existing services, had very low quality and was not user-friendly. It is currently being torn out and replaced, hence my comment about e-waste!

Each time a colleague from another district tells me that Verkada is too expensive, my answer is simple: “Have you done a total cost of ownership of your system? Because we have and guess what, Verkade’s pricing is competitive in this industry and we are saving time and money with the system. Verkada handles firmware upgrades. We have unlimited cloud storage— nothing is on-prem. We spend VERY little time maintaining the system.”

The bottom line: just because a price tag looks appealing, it might end up as e-waste or landfill before you know it. IT leaders need to know the difference between cost and value.

Physical Security

Microsoft

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