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Japan Considers Moving Away From Windows
dm24_99 writes "According to this article at Japan Today, the Japanese government is considering abandoning Microsft Windows in a plan to boost computer security within the government. The government is very interested in alternatives, especially Linux." Of course, like the bank reform being proposed, who knows when this will actually happen.
I hope they don't say this just to have Bill or Steve come and make a good deal. These days ...
Because paying Microsoft is supporting a foreign nation instead of your own. Given the choice, you always want to invest in your own country. You get much better support that way, too.
Linux support for Unicode is/will be a major factor in any progress in the Asian market. Windows supports Unicode but it is (frankly) so painful to make work in applications that decent Linux support would be a major selling point.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Well I don't think it's fair to compare with bank reform, after all. The accumulation of loans and debts have been too deep to be exposed... and the reform will be too embarassing to the Japanese themselves. Dumping Microsoft, on the other hand, at least won't be embarassing. I think the Japanese had put many effort in localizing Linux themselves. Of course others are right that it could be yet another tactic to negotiate a better deal with MS...
More significant than any possible actual system change is the fact that Japan is actually considering dropping MS. As Linux and open source is taken more and more seriously, maybe people won't fall for the same closed source propaganda anymore. Microsoft may actually have to compete on quality, rather than reliability.
I'm interested how much money will that cost MS. $100 millions for AIDS and $400 millions for fighting Linux like they did in India will certainly not be enough here. And may i add that I'm surprised how much an afternoon hobby of some of us cost that company.
Given Japan's rather poor economy nowadays I really have my doubts if they're willing to tackle the conversion in the near future--mostly because of the large number of IT man-hours needed to do the conversion and support the systems after the conversion.
However much MS say their software "builds" economies the fact is that for anyone outside the US the software is an import i.e. money leaves the country to buy it. Not good. It is also rumoured to contain back doors making it unsuitable unless you like being spied upon. Most don't.
Another possibility is that threatening to use open source encourages MS to make huge donations and be very nice to you. If bribary is normal in your country then there is also the possibility of greatly improving your standard of living by being a decision maker in a government or educational establishment. MS can then buy out all your countries government bodies and universities to make absolutely sure open source will never ever see the light of day in any place that matters.
I would hope that the Japanese government is considering open source for the first reasons in the first paragraph more than the second.
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at governments decreeing security by fiat (cough*CLipper*cough). Companies have recognised that risk management is key to avoiding many of the problems (e.g. middle office to vet orders/inventory/accounts) yet they consider hiring sysadmins who hold paper certificates as a panacea for electronic security? If you are vitally concerned with information security (e.g. trade secrets), then it is incumbant on cultivating the right culture and habits (logging off away from desk). It might be feasible to leave houses unlocked in small towns where everyone knows everyone else (social sanctions in shunning property violation offenses) but we have deadbolts, invisible IDs and security guards in cities. Similarly security is mainly a systematic process of educating users in using keys (PGP), selecting secureable devices (OpenBSD) or hiring suitable external expertise. Just expecting a single silver bullet of replacing an OS (no matter how good/badly secure it is perceived to be) seems to be on the order of Caute v the tide.
LL
I have always been amazed by how almost every country pays MS tax even if they have both the skills and the industry to make their own software. Migrating to something from your own country would indeed put the money back in your pocket instead of shipping it abroad. Localization isnt just the language, the culture has a significant part of how a computer should interact too. There are big advantages of having your own software industry. The distance from a company in the USA to EU, Japan etc. is big both in culture and in communication. Microsoft develops mainly for the american culture wich shines through the product.
Having the development in your country should atleast in theory give a much better adapted set of applications that if you buy a ironed out fit_all_suit-everything version like Microsofts products.
HTTP/1.1 400
I think Ricardo proved it is good to trade with any country where you have good relations. If you buy one nations good hopefully they will figure out that it is good to buy ours. Given the choice you want to maximize productivity. Closed economies by govenment policy usually leads to poverty. Trade is good and that is why I hire a plumber when I need it. That is why we call it their "trade". Many people in the US are dumping Microsoft for a much better reason. It is too expensive and unreliable.
Uh... Don't think Germany is asian. Remember this slashdot article As Germany goes so goes the EU. And the EU is or will be the largest world economy. Japan is currently the second largest national economy.(IIRC)
It makes perfect sense for governments to turn their backs on private/U.S. software and embrace open software solutions. The economic impact for M$ will ultimately be severe. I think it is in the U.S. economic interest to promote open source and or competitive alternatives to the M$ monopoly. So that we [speaking as a usian (tm) of course] remain competitive.
And that is why the recent court decision r.e. M$ is a tragedy for all concerned.
"Don't Follow Leaders." Bob Dylan
Doesn't bother me either way. Think it through. If they are looking for the payola that means M$ will be paying every country on the planet in just another year or two. Who would want to be left off the gravy train if all you have to do is say "We might migrate" and millions of dollars flow out of Redmond And they can do it again in a year or two. Bribes only work when you are trying to prevent the appearance of a 'showcase' installation and they are a stopgap measure at best.
Eventually we will get a few governments converting simply because M$ has succeeded too well at getting the US Govt to lean on poor countries on the 'piracy' issue. Since they CAN'T pay they only really have two choices, get M$ to donate licenses or migrate.
Longterm M$ needs a better answer than paying their customers to use their product. These tactics are just to buy time to come up with a real strategy. That will be the time for fear. They are now clear of the Justice Dept and are free to act. Expect them to act as soon as Bill G and Monkey Boy come up with a plan they like.
Democrat delenda est
In industrial countries where labour is expensive, like Germany and Japan, Linux is making inroads on desktops and has already marginalized Windows on Servers:
Japan
Germany
For developing countries, the cost of hiring many people to babysit Windows computers is no problem, but where labour cost is high, the switch to Linux can pay off already in the first year.
(Yes I know, that contradicts to Microsoft "Windows-TCO-is-low" propaganda, but so is reality.)
Better average education level?
One must also consider the often overlooked cost of not changing over...
Sorry, it's bollocks.
It's not hard to find exploitable servers of any OS, be it Linux, BSD, Solaris or even Windows in Japan - the Far East's insecurity is legendary.
The point is, you can't expect any OS to be secure if you don't keep up with the latest security patches. They would be better off using the money to train their admins to some degree of competence.
Some people actually believe that Linux is more secure than Windows. How sad.
t ml
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/28118.h
Well, in our company, situation is like this:
10 fellows work their asses off just keeping windows workstations running. When they have to set up some new service or software, they need three MSCE's to do that.
Three UNIX guys keep their systems up and running, develop new services, take care of the network infrastructure and help those MSCE's on the side when they come up with Something Too Difficult(tm).
And the TCO? Well. Both of these groups buy expensive, high quality server hardware for their needs. Windows fellows seem to need approximately three times more hardware for similar services as UNIX fellows do. Yearly license fees for windows are ridicilously high, even high priced support agreements for UNIX systems are peanuts compared to windows licensing.
Hardware & support: UNIX is cheaper
Software & support: UNIX is cheaper
Employment expenses: UNIX is cheaper
And when you begin to calculate how much money you waste when a well paid employee can't work because his windows has some kind of malfunction or other problem, you might notice that UNIX as a desktop is actually a really good investment. Users run those for years without problems, patching and upgrades are often totally unnoticeable events for them. (roughly 10% of the employees seem to have problems with windows every day)
And migrating from Windows to UNIX? Childsplay. Many of the windows services are set up to come up with shortcomings of windows systems. Some expensive and difficult "software miracles" are standard services in UNIX world.
Anonymous - because I want you to keep on guessing who pays my salary.
Cool site. Apple has great computers (I'm using one now), and a operating system that is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. It pleases me greatly to see any Apple growth in any market.
That said, Linux gives Japan one thing not even Apple can: a customizable operating system for all that cool Japanese hardware. Sharp has been one of the first Japanese companies to realize this, and go with it, producing the Linux based Zaurus PDA. That very same Japan Today website also contained an article about Sharp and IBM teaming up to provide some kind of wireless, Linux based, services.
Sharp's successes and this decision by the Japanese government might encourage other Japanese computer hardware makers to throw off the Microsoft yoke. Linux would give them more room to innovate (unlike Microsoft who issues yearly hardware specs on what it wants PCs to be that year) while connecting them with open standards to other versions of Linux and other operating systems from around the world.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
Chances are that Columbia is further along the road of officially adopting Open Source than any of those three. Is there a distribution coming out of Columbia??
Yes it's good to support a distribution that's based in oyour country, but the nice thing about Linux is that -- because it's OS -- you can provide meaningful support for the OS without being the official source of it. If Canada decided to go RedHat or Debian, for example, I could start up a company to provide support. I could either depend on the original distributors for support, or I could do the support myself.
As an example: a friend of mine is having problems with ftp/xinetd on a redhat installaton. We don't have to wait for RedHat to get around to fixing this problem. I can download the source, insert (or uncomment) debug statements and solve the problem myself.Once it's tracked, I can forward the fix to RedHat to fold into the official release.
No matter where the distribution is sourced, my company doesn't have to wait on what is financially advantageous to RedHat to get the fix. If RedHat isn't willing to do the work, then the work and, (almost as importantly) the payment for the work, can occur locally.
Not being entirely dependent on a foreign company for support and being able to keep support payments inside the country are both incentives to any government.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
This is a beancounter's idea, obviously--someone who thinks Linux is "free" *chuckle*...
> For developing countries, the cost of hiring many people to babysit Windows computers is no problem, but where labour cost is high, the switch to Linux can pay off already in the first year.
For developing countries the cost of buying Windows and upgrading it (including new computers evry 3 years) is prohibitive. If the software is not pirated then putting Linux on the old P233 box, even if it takes a truckload of cheap labour, pays for itself on the first day (compared to a new machine with XP/Office 11).
That's really not true. In a lot of countries, trade is very one-sided, and it only hurts the country. Take countries around the Indian subcontinent. In those countries, there is a small upper class with a significant amount of spending power. However, they tend to spend most of their money on foreign products, so instead of the money having a "trickle-down" effect (as Reagen-ites like to call it) it just leaves the economy entirely. On the other hand, those countries don't sell nearly enough to make up for what they buy. As a result, money continually leaves those countries, instead of staying within them. Trade is only helpful when it's really "trade," implying an equal exchange on both sides. This, btw, is one reason (of many) people are afraid of globalization. Countries (especially the US*) and others tend to open up markets for their products, rather than creating mutually benificial two-way relationships.
*> I'm not saying, btw, that this is a negative intention on the part of these countries. It's just that the US is self-sufficient in most things (food, etc) so we have a lot to sell, but not a whole lot to buy.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I think you're kind of forgetting that the installation process isn't exactly a trivial process. It means many hours of planning the change, uninstalling the old Windows software on servers and desktops, reinstalling everything under Linux, and configuring/tweaking the whole setup to work correctly.
Given the state of the Japanese economy lately I don't think corporations are going to attempt this just yet given the high labor costs involved to do the conversion. They'll do it in a few years' time when the economy is better.
The auditability of closed source software is nil.
Which goverment can say with a straight face that any close dource solution is safe, secure, etc.?
Not so with OSS where all is transparent. And democracy is all about transparency, accountability and auditability.
Goverments should not be using closed source software. They should demand to see the source.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.