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Norwegian Government Expires Microsoft Contract
Jeppe Salvesen writes "The Norwegian sites are bristling with the news, and hopefully this will leak worldwide. The Norwegian Government has dropped their contract with Microsoft. Microsoft had an exclusive deal with national and regional government. Administration Secretary Victor D. Norman states that 'we feel that our contract with Microsoft in reality has given Microsoft a monopoly in a field where competition would serve us better.'. My translation. The race is on."
Localization and language support are going to be an issue here.
There is no 'i' in team, but there is in fiasco...
Okay, lets see. They realized they wernt getting the cost-savings they could have in a truely robust, competative market. So they are biting the hand of their drug dealer.
And then everybody complains - hey, they're the only ones that sell suitable drugs! Well, DUH - because nobody's bothered asserting their desire to purchase drugs from another dealer.
Has the concept of 'investing in your future' totally gone out the window? Short term pain, long term gain? Hello, is anybody listening to how stupid people sound when they're saying that MS is the only suitable thing? Isn't it self-evident that the kind of attitude like, "Well, what else is there," is *why* there isn't much else in terms of choice?
On what planet do people live when they think, for some reason, MS is the only company *capable* of producing an OS with the 'ease of use' Windows has?
(As an aside, but related to the 'Well, what else can they use' quotes, does ANYONE realize how much sweeter life would be had MS not been able to squeeze beOS out of existence?)
"Old man yells at systemd"
Microsoft dropping an exclusive contract with Microsoft is going to do little to increase competition, for desktops, anyways, because there's nothing out there to compete with their desktop software. KDE and GNOME are poor substitutes for the Windows desktop, which is not saying much at all. What alternatives are there for Office ? StarOffice, KOffice, and OpenOffice are still miles away. And let's not forget the many sites that won't be viewable under Netscape/Mozilla/Konqueror/Opera.
I'm not saying I'm happy with this, and nobody would be happier to see Windows eradicated from the desktop, but that's our present unhappy state, and Norway's move isn't going to do anything to fix a problem that has been 10 years brewing. Heck, Microsoft has had a near hegemony in desktop software for AT LEAST 7 years, and it's only getting stronger.
Or do they go...Open Source ? Who you gonna call when stuff breaks?
Um, how about any of hundreds of enormously competent consulting firms who specialize in open source, have competitive rates, actually answer the phone and can actually fix the problem rather than tell you to wait for a service pack which may or may not do the job.
This is a computerized translation so I can't promise anything ... plus I don't speak Norwegian :)
Commonwealth said up Microsoft - agree Commonwealth has said up agreement along with Microsoft as donated dataselskapet ace at to contribute shareware at computers at statlige offices. Debattcentralen: Neat and IT work and Ad administrasjonsminister Overcome D. Norman H ) considers contract of sale along with Microsoft has been adverse. He believing bigger competition able afford cheaper dataløsninger both for commonwealth and consumer. We fancy that it agreement we have had along with Microsoft in actuality rendered Microsoft a monopoly of a ambit how we're served along with to a few competition , say Norman at NRK. Norman believing denunciation at agreement along with Microsoft not only that shall afford cheaper dataløsninger , but also qualitative better solutions. (NTB)
It seems to me that most governments would do more for furthering the independence from proprietary software by increasing dependence on open standards. For instance, if I were President for a day (mwahaha!), the first thing I woudl do is issue an executive order stating that no agency, department or NGO may use .doc formatted texts. Where documents are purely text, they must be sent in plain ASCII or rtf formats. Suddenly the "need" for Word is lessened considerably. Need spreadsheets? Send tab-delimited files everywhere. I don't have all the details worked out but it seems to me the reason why governments and the like are so dependent on MSFT is because they are dependent on what the software produces not how the software performs.
We use Microsoft software in work. Who did you say we can call when stuff breaks? For free? Cool, what's the number?
Who you gonna call when stuff breaks? Your sysadmin, or maybe your software vendor, if you have a support contract. Other companies know about providing end user support as well, you know.
Interesting how here on /., when discussing an alternative to MS, the first (and usually only) alternative to be discussed is Linux. As far as a desktop OS is concerned, Apple's Mac OS X may be far better suited to the task. Since the subsystem is very closely based on Open/FreeBSD and hence supports all the "information wants to be free" technologies that Linux does, the real comparison is the user interface.
:)).
... this isn't a flame or a troll, just a commentary.
Now, I have a whole lot of respect for the GNOME and KDE efforts (I have Ximian on my laptop and KDE on one of my desktops), but they've got a ways to go to reach OS X's level of ease-of-use. I believe OS X is also localized in Norwegian, but I could be wrong on this count (if I am wrong, then that's a good reason to discount OS X
Apple's no longer *just* for creatives, designers, writers, etc. It is (at its core) a highly productive and functional operating system built on a highly stable and powerful subsystem. With OS X, you can *get things done*. For the novice computer user, OS X can be a good deal more intuitive than either Windows OR any of the Linux UIs.
*sigh*
Cheers.
You must have grown up in a really nice and technology inclined area of the world, cause even here in Southern California, where I've lived my entire life, is just not placing computers with Windows in their classrooms and labs.
I remember using Mac's in school for the majority of my time (from grade school on up through High School). If this chain were true, why am I not a Mac user? If I had any experience w/ DOS and/or Windows, or PC's for that matter, it was because of outside influences and/or work.
Though this 'Chain' will be correct in select areas, it's not the reason that linux can't get a break, nor breaking this 'chain' will cause Linux to spring forward and become the new fad that everyone must have. It's still missing a lot of things that windows offers, and it's not just going to become everyones OS's of choice just cause Governments want to switch over to it.
Unless Linux wants to push toward cloning the Windows Interface and have it react as windows does (From how a user can just turn the machine on, and 20 seconds later they can sign onto AOL, to just double clicking to install updates to the system itself.), it will never break the chain.
Linux's real problem lies in the people, and unless it can provide an environment that will allow even the most illiterate user to be able to function as they would within a windows environment, all linux will continue to get is elitest's, rebels and us uber-geeks that are willing to learn something new. And contrary to popular belief, we aren't as large in numbers compared to the amount of people in the world who just prefer to read their email than know how that email travelled to them.
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Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. - Euripides
Let's assume that the Norweigan government want to junk Windows, and have 1000 machines that they wish to junk it from. The average price of a Mac (taking the mean of all the different models) is about £1000. I don't know what that is in Kroner (?), but that comes to a cool million quid. For what? New hardware, that they don't need.
A million pounds! That's about 1.5 million US dollars I think. That's a lot of taxpayers cash.
And before somebody rants off about how it'd cost a million dollars to support Linux, I'd like to dispell this myth that somehow nobody needs to support or administer Macs. People say "they are so easy to configure, Linux is hard". But you don't want users reconfiguring network terminals anyway, so that isn't an issue. "Software installation is hard". Ditto. All the stuff that they need, ie writing office documents, browsing the net, checking email etc Linux does just fine, and more importantly, does it without the HUGE cost of rebuying Microsoft Office (I read $500 somewhere, which is also crazy). For organisations that already have computers, Macs are uneconomic, and no amount of guesswork based on TCO will change that. Period.
I don't think the plan is to replace the hardware...also, compared to OS X, even Windows XP wouldn't be ready for the desktop. I think "ready for the desktop" has become the most meaningless sentence ever. I use Linux on my desktop, therefore it is ready for the desktop. Just because OS X has a nicer GUI (that's debatable) doesn't mean Linux cannot be used in a productivity environment.
;-)
Back in the 80's, end users were stuck with DOS, Lotus 1-2-3 and Wordperfect - and yet they were productive. They knew how to use their computers. Perhaps the learning curve was a bit steeper, but somehow they managed. Have we suddenly all become so stupid that if we don't get enough eye candy we can no longer use a computer? I had a crash course in Maya at my job: that program has so many menus and options and whatnot, it's the opposite of user-friendly - and yet it's still the market leader...I find the trend to "dumb down" computers as much as possible quite disturbing, to tell you the truth. At some point we have to accept that computers must have a minimum degree of complexity if we are to have a good control of how they behave. So the hypothetical grandma can't use it? Well, that's to bad: she can't program her VCR either. But a 12-year old can learn UNIX - for him it's just a game...so why do we care so much about "usability" when the next generation is adapting itself to technology faster than we ever did? To hear the UI fanatics, you'd think that it's impossible for an average user to use Linux (which is totally false, I have had the occasion of testing it more than once). It's as if we were trying to encourage the user to be as lazy as possible...
Oh well, I still think KDE3.02 with Crystal icons and Kermakik style looks nicer and is more usable than Aqua on OS X. Not that I care...
Reminder: find a new sig
People are missing a major point.
:-) And these licenses have to be bought each year. And for thousands of computers multiplied by number of services that is rather expensive...
:-)
What is more important is that the techies may now chose server software. Like file servers, database servers, web servers, terminal servers, print servers. Things on the client side will probably not change...
Take for instance MS Terminal Server. The actual software is cheep. Then one has to buy a license for each user connected simultaneously. Then for each ip address that connects. The licensing server will count all ip's that view the logon screen... one does not have to log in...
Digitus2001 - a norwegian
This post got modded up? By who? CmdrTaco? One mouse button my ass!
1) Mac OS X has turned out to be the best, most reliable and most user-friendly of ALL UNIX distributions.
2) Do you really want me to list all the things KDE/Linux does wrong or rather the ways they have to go to reach OS X level of ease of use ( hah...I can hear your blood boiling from here)?
I could go on about having a CONCISTENT interface being a number one priority. But I'll leave you with just one example: Font-handling.
If your not-really-believable "P.S.; [sic] Yes, I have a Mac." argument got you modded up, I should at least get +1 Insightful on the accounts that:
1) I have a mac
2) I am Norwegian
3) I have first hand experience with Mac OS X since the Public Beta(s) AND I happen to know that it's Norwegian (and in fact any language support) is top notch.
4) I write handy little lists like this
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java