Farewell FirstClass

Today is the day. North Lanarkshire is retiring our communication application FirstClass. Uses in schools for e-mail, file storage and discussion forums.

I remember starting in North Lanarkshire in October 2008. I saw FirstClass for the first time. Even then it’s UI looked a little outdated. Over the years I can to appreciate some of it qualities. Excellent usability on a very poor mobile signal. Compared to other email solutions it feels very lightweight, in a good way.

I learnt a little of its other features, some of which were good, some a bit clunky (the web publishing).

At the end of my time at the computer centre, FirstClass developed a web frontend. This was a more modern UI, but I only saw that briefly. NLC continued to use the desktop application.

While I was an ICT dev officer I spent a lot of time in firstClass. After returning to the classroom I continued to use it every day. It will be strange not to open it up anymore.