RM to resell Apple, Lenovo, HP, Dell to YOUR children

I work in schools.

I made a career out of going into schools, throwing the RM junk software and hardware out, replacing it (or at the very least formatting over it with bare Windows) with something half-the-cost that worked better, was as secure, and did everything you'd expect.

I once received - out of 5 new RM PC's - 1 machine with no motherboard jumpers (critical beeps on boot, refused to do anything, nothing rattling about in box), 1 PC that six-months-later all the capacitors went in it (RM support suggestion - buy a PCI USB card, then a PCI network card, then a PCI video cards because THEY KNEW THE ORDER THAT THE CAPS WOULD BLOW and they wouldn't replace until they'd all blown!), and 3 PC's that were configured in the BIOS to keep the fans on minimum, not issue overheat warnings, not shutdown on overheat, etc. Lucky I checked!

In the intervening years, I managed to bring an RM CC4 network to its knees by deploying a "Connect package" (really an MSI with particular pathnames in it) with a space in the filename (literally every machine crashed on reboot, refused to boot into Windows, the servers went down, couldn't remove the package, etc. etc. etc.). They patched that later, but what the hell? And an RM is the only machine I've ever seen in the thousands and thousands I've dealt with that actually EXPLODED - a PSU just decided to go bang, smoke and start flaming (in a school) half-way through booting Windows. That's not counting the "death shields" they had to issue for their 48x CD drives that let you eject the disk while it was still spinning resulting in instant CD-shurikens coming at small children, especially if the disk was somehow damaged and you pressed eject to stop it and it shattered as it came out...

Their laptops that they used to sell? I actually argued so much over how useless they were that they got in their guy who covers all of England RM tech support. And then overheard him in a conversation that basically went "So the wireless drivers don't work?" "No." "And we can't upgrade them?" "No, it crashes the network software with newer drivers" "So it can't work at the current moment at all? And we just sold it to them?" "No". "Okay, don't tell them, we'll just say it's their wireless access points" (also RM supplied, but he didn't know that!).

I can tell you many more stories of cap failures (far too many on their cheap boards), or the RM tech support who sent back three faulty computers FIVE TIMES when the school shipped it to them for repair - the error? CMOS Checksum Failure. 3 x CR2032 and they worked for years after that, but apparently that was beyond RM tech support on no less than FIVE separate returns!.

I made a lot of money out of how useless they were, and even their "exclusive" Borough tech support arrangements didn't help them because they were just that useless. I used to manage upwards of 10 schools in a week and 8 of those eventually stopped paying their RM support fees and paid me half of that instead and got better service.

In the end, it wore me down though and I just went with old clients who knew what they were doing. Having the same arguments every year with headteachers about "Why don't we go RM like my old school?" got boring and I just stayed with the schools that understood.

In the interview for my last two places (independent prep schools), they actually asked my opinion on RM in the interview. In both cases I was hired because of my history of removing their junk and making things actually work as expected. The only legacy in my current school is the RM logo branded on the covers of some network points (which have since been re-run or had the modules replaced). And I met the guy who apparently designed the RM logo. He's currently selling 3D printers while living off his RM pension. So that went well.

And, yes, I have been in an interview where I asked their opinion about RM kit I had spotted (you can see it a mile off) and they were favourable, on the exact systems I knew were problematic, which led me to abandon the application there and then. I took it to mean that the guy had no clue and/or only bought what was sold to him.

Honestly, their hardware was junk, their software is still junk (but moving to web junk at least), their support was useless, their network tools were pathetic (RM SystemGuard - Google it like almost all the kids of the era did and could get admin on any machine from a daily password published on the Internet generated from an easy-to-remember formula) and inferior to just a basic AD setup with proper permissions, and they were pushed as "the" place to get kit from. It never was, as far as I could tell, unless you were someone who knew nothing about IT.

Why anyone touches them I can't work out.

One exception? RM Maths was, technical installation/running issues aside, quite good for teaching kids maths. That's now a web product.