USDOI Goes 100% Microsoft

SatanIsHere writes: "A memo (here, here, here, and here) dated September 19th, 2002 from the Department of the Interior's Acting CIO notes the new policy of a "Department-wide standard for computer operating systems (desktop and server)" Of course the good news is that this will herald a new era in government transparancy for the Department of the Interior. SatanIsHere Continues: "On September 13, 2002, the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget signed the attached Findings and Determination establishing Microsoft Corporation's enterprise desktop and server software as the Department-wide standard for computer operating systems (desktop and server), office automation, and asset management software.... Benefits of establishing this new Department-wide standard include:

• Lower Total Cost of Ownership for the desktop, including lower user training costs.
• Centralized and efficient security policy administration
• Greater flexibility and management functionality from products that offer a broader range of management solutions that integrate with non-Microsoft environments
• Greater productivity and reliability attributed to less downtime.
• Extended support for a large base of software applications.

Business specific application software requirements (such as Sun/Solaris, IBM, AIX, etc.) outside the established Microsoft standard may be addressed through the OCIO waiver process."

This looks to freeze out an entire Federal Department (70,000+ employees) from non-Microsoft solutions, requiring a "waiver" to use anything non-MS. One more step to complete Microsoft World Domination. This is particularly ironic considering the problems DOI has had recently regarding IT security. If this isn't leveraging a desktop monopoly into other areas I don't know what is. :-P"

Comments

Microsoft *is* the choice for Dept of Interior

[tshoppa]

What the head article fails to mention is that a Federal judge ordered the Department of the Interior to shut down all internet connections last year. With no from-the-outside network attacks, the Microsoft systems might stay up for days, even.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:All-Microsoft?

[Quixote]

As a taxpayer (I assume), I sure hope your interest in this issue is more than just in making snide remarks.

As a taxpayer, I don't like the idea of my tax dollars being used to get locked into some monopoly; and I'm not talking about MS' business monopoly here. For example: all the documents created in Office2K or whatever will not readable (faithfully) by any other software, including OpenOffice.

If USDOI wants to go with MS exclusively, then they should have a plan in place to be able to use replacement software in an emergency situation. In other words, make MS release the specs for the documents created using MSOffice before finalising this deal.

I urge all the readers to contact your local congressperson and state Senator about this. Here's a list of the senators in the Interior subcommittee (the department comes under Appropriations):
Senators Byrd, Leahy, Hollings, Reid, Dorgan, Feinstein, Murray, Inouye, Burns, Stevens, Cochran, Domenici, Bennett, Gregg, Campbell.
Of these, Sen Feinstein may be the one who can be most influenced by the geeks here.

If possible, write (deadtree letter) or FAX them; an email just doesn't cut it.

Re:Can someone explain to me...

[Tikiman]

I don't know about what others think, but the fact that they are standardizing on the single most expensive solution bothers me. I am also bothered by the fact that they have either subscribed to microsoft FUD or just don't care. The vast majority of those 70,000 need word processing, web browsing, and email for which MS is a stupidly expensive solution. I would rather see them all using 5 year old hardware running a stripped down, custom Linux distro with Mozilla and an office suite.

The effective of a MS solution is not justified by its cost period - and as a taxpayer, I say its a problem.

as a DOI employee

[briancnorton]

I work first hand with DOI IT, and I can tell you that there will be waivers flying every direction. Everything is UNIX now, and there are not enough qualified people to migrate. They spent MILLIONS replacing 3000 mail servers with 32 Domino servers, and they arent changing that anytime soon.

All specialized applications are UNIX, and will be waived.

The major problem is with administrators. There arent enough qualified people here to run a multimode environment. They cant pay enough to get qualified Americans to work for them, and they cant contract out to H1Bs.

in short, I dont think this will have much of an effect.

Re:waiver process?!?

[jspaleta]

There is a strong case to be made for conformance of systems

And I'd say take that one step further had have conformance of systems...but conformance to a published open standard...so you can have competition without conformance degration.

Once you start down the MS road and start using software that does not conform to a published standard you are locked in and the cost of switch over to any else becomes extremely high..and higher after every release cycle.

Its hard to talk about conformance when the issues at hand are vendor specific since the vendor can force change on you via updates. You can get conformance and competition if you limit yourself to an open specification that all vendors can compete for. Once you let the vendor dictate to you what features are worth using and what features you are going to get...your stuck...without paying a huge penalty to get out. But if you don't pay the huge penalty in the short term you pay a gigantic penalty in the long term after several upgrade cycles, where you have lost the power to make decisions as to what you really need and who can provide the software and the systems.

Honestly, sometimes, it makes sense to standardize

It sure does...so stop using MS...becuase MS software does not conform to OPEN standards. How standard is a standard if there isn't a neutral 3rd body overseeing conformance to that standard.
If we used a standard of length measurement only sold to us by MS, we'd have to upgrade our rulers every 2 years becuase the standard would surely change.

-jef

Re:How it all works.

[Your_Mom]

But you know what 100% Microsoft translates to? 100% downtime when the next "melissa" or "nimda" hits.

No. No, No, No, and No again. It's not about a 100% homogenous networks, its not about MSFT or Linux, and it's not about what certifications you have. It's about competent administration. I am a NT admin, I enjoy Linux, I use it at home regularly, but NT pays the bills. We got hit by Nimda, but, we only lost 2 computers. One of which was a Developer's box who decided to be running IIS and told no one about it (Patient Zero, I think he was rooted within 5 minutes of the first onslaught of IIS exploits), the other one ran an attachment 5 minutes before we pushed out the AnitVirus updates ("But I only previewed it!" LART - Hard). I think we had spare boxes swapped out in about 1 hour and had files salvaged off the old PCs in about 3h. Did we do mop up duty for the next 2 days due to infected boxes from "trusted" people spewing .eml files onto our file server? [1] Indeedy do. Did we put in some overtime? I think all of IT did about 2 hours per person the night after the initial infection, and I put in about 2 hours watching snort logs scroll by the first night the sh*t hit the fan. under $200 OT, probably cost my department $300-$400 tops. Did my 2 IIS servers (*shudder* Yes, I hate them too) get rooted? No way. I patch those things like there is no tommorow.Did we lose the entire network to the thing? Not on your life.

Also, when everything calmed down, we all sat down over a nice glass of Guiness and figured out "What can we do better next time?" there is always room for improvement. (We initiated policies of port scanning computers in the NT domain for unauthorized services, as we were proved once again that some people can't be trusted)

That is how it all works . thank you.

Wow, that was a nice rant

[1]"Why is $luser's account disabled?"
"Because she was spewing nimda into our file server"
"But she needs to access $important_file"
"When she gets fixed and I cna inspect her computer, I will re-enable the account"

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[account_deleted]

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Re:All-Microsoft?

[1010011010]

I'm sure Hollings will be really receptive to my concerns about locking in the DOI to Microsoft-only systems. Not.

But, as you pointed out, my interest does run deeper than making "snide remarks." I am a taxpayer. I live in Raleigh, N.C. I plan to call Senator Jesse Helms' office and ask him to review the DOI's decision to lock out non-Microsoft products in favor of those made by Microsoft -- a monopoly currently being prosecuted by the federal government. I'll point out that there are other U.S. software companies that make fine products, and it's in the government's interest to avoid single sources for their systems. I'll mention RedHat -- based in Raleigh, just like Senator Helms. I'll mention Sun and Apple. I'll mention IBM and Oracle.