Frances Bell

Sorry for delay in thanking you - I was submerged in project deliverables so - thank you Miles 
From what I can see from the links you provided
there are two levels of licensing for MS Sharepoint (haven't checked CLass Server)- server and client, priced for UK education as follows

Share Point Portal Server 2003	ex. VAT
Media	£21.06
MOLP A	£1299.00
MOLP B	£1245.00
Share Point Portal Server 2003 Client Access License (CAL)	ex. VAT
MOLP A	£29.00
MOLP B	£27.00

It is not clear what a client is (content provider or plain user).
We were considering using this on CABWEB but needing to manage these licenses for our fairly short term collaborations with variable number of users would have been:
a) expensive
b) a lot of work
If students had needed a client license, it would have been - very very expensive!
The moral is - we made a good decision to go with Moodle.
I'll leave you  guys to tussle with MS Class Server.
As an oldish IS person, let me remind you all that "supplier lock in" is the payback for marketing investment.  A bit of lock in is realistic but let's take the long view.
FYI, on our project, we went with Moodle about half way through the two years.  We have adopted a 'configure not customise' strategy (wouldn't suit everyone) that fits our situation of short term funding, since we can upgrade merrily with little extra work and increase our chances of sustainability.

Miles,
3 questions
Is MS Class Server based on Sharepoint?
Do you know what the licence structure is (server, content provider, user - all need licenses?) ?
May I quote your comparison (duly attributed) in a project report I am writing?

MMM is a wonderful book, with lots of insight into big systems development.
I like the bit about moving from a 'garage' program to an integrated system.
Also "Adding resource makes a late project later".

This survey has been reported in the ALT newsletter
followed by this comment
"There is lots of evidence of some intensive usage of Moodle and it would seem that the figure of 32 is
probably now on the conservative side. In preparing this update I contacted the ILT Champs List and
received the following information:-
· 12 out of 45 colleges in the Yorkshire and Humber region are now using Moodle.
· In London 17 colleges (32%) have adopted Moodle - this compares with Blackboard : 10 colleges
(19%); and WebCT: 5 colleges (10%).
· In the West Midlands 23 out of our 53 colleges use Moodle. About 10 of the remainder are likely to
switch in the next year."
I presented ideas from our CABWEB group at the launch of this group
and was impressed by the interest in Moodle.

On the CAB project, we have built a portal that is cross-institutional see http://www.cabweb.net

Our rationale for choosing and staying with Moodle is:

• recommendations from people we trusted
• good fit to our requirements
• multi-lingual user interface (we have international participants)
• availability of collaborative tools such as forums, glossaries, WIKI  (useful for tutor and student collaborations)
  
• ability to configure and populate with minimal technical intervention
• architecture that permits "different spaces and types of spaces" within it

We haven't regretted our decision though I am sure that other systems have their merits too.