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Microsoft Loses Showdown in Houston
An anonymous reader writes "It seems the city of Houston has decided against using Microsoft software. It really is amazing how much it costs to use (and maintain) software. I can't help but wonder if this will become a trend." Turns out they decided on the relativly unknown SimDesk suite, which has nothing to do with The Sims, sadly. Many, many posts about this. In additional news seldo writes "There's an interesting interview on News.Com with Peter Houston. He discusses Microsoft's changing attitude in competing with Linux -- no longer calling it a "cancer" but instead promoting the advantages of Windows."
From the SimExplorer page on the SimDesk site:
Several patents have been filed for SimExplorer, including a recycle bin available on the Internet. SimExplorer moves deleted data to a virtual recycle bin and allows users to recover or restore that data if it was deleted by mistake. Previously, this functionality was only available on Microsoft© platforms: SimExplorer now makes it possible on all computer platforms.
Sorry, but it's already out there for multiple platforms. All they did was put it behind the familiar "Recycle bin" interface. This isn't so different from the Amazon one-click patent.
1. They don't know about OSS and Free Software
2. The do know about OSS and Free Software
Now, the people in group 1 tend to do nothing about it, and carry on getting shafted by MS. The people in group 2 tend to think "Yeah, all this new licensing is gonna cripple us. Time to look elsewhere". And end up going down the OSS/Free route. The West Yorkshire Police did it.
So, what made these guys go down this odd, obscure, proprietary route with a company which seems to saddle all their technology with proprietaryness and software patentyness?
Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
Those are probably Win32 apps!
I hate to say it but that was a much better written article than I expected. City politics, threats by Microsoft, that article had everything!
I was disappointed about the lack of OSS but hell at least people are out there proving there's a choice in software. System and network administrator's jobs are going to be FUN in the years ahead. People will have to know more than Wintel to get a job.
This guy is way out there
To set the facts straight, simdesk was selected by bid rigging and conflict of interest of a software contract in Houston.
It's about to be thrown out and legal action pursued against the IT contractor.
The funny thing is that Mayor Lee P. Brown has overspent all of the reserve funds in Houston so that any 'savings' from non-MS software will be much more than wasted on higher government spending. This hits everyone regressivly since all of the costs are added to each homeowner's property tax and water bill. This applies to renters since rent is based on direct taxes and water costs.
The reason for the overspending is that Mayor Lee P. Brown wanted to fund/back several downtown sports stadiums (baseball, football, and basketball).
It's very funny how these private enterprises (sports teams) get public funding of their businesses. A double standard since all of them break even (baseball) on their own or make a good profit (basketball and football).
This all ties into the 300+ million 2 mile light rail project which goes from one sports stadium to another. Ridership on the bus line for this route is under 150 people a day. This project was sold as a way to revitalize that area of town. Funny how the sports stadium built in the early 1960s in the same area was sold as a way to revitalize that part of town.
It is almost like a burecrat/politician wants to accomplish some big $$ government project so that they can go on to a job with another city with more pay and do the same thing again.
I am always amazed at how generous liberal politicians are with the taxpayer's money.
Yeah, it's competition for Microsoft and face it, Microsoft is the monolithic dinosaur with an aging product line. SimDesk, whatever you want to say about them, is the fleet of foot furry little rascal which is prepared for the coming ice age.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It thought the article said the CEO came in AFTER the decision to start using the software. Wait, let me go check...
SimDesk faces long road
[...] Lou Waters, former CEO of waste giant Browning-Ferris Industries, recently replaced Knowling as SimDesk's CEO. [...]"
Yeah, that's what it says. Wow, I read the article twice in the same time it took you to NOT read it once.
-- My HARDWARE, My CHOICE.
First they ignore Linux, then they spread FUD, then they attack the GPL and compare it to cancer. All this did was draw more attention to Linux. They blew it completely. They failed to realize that most people hate Microsoft but use it because it is forced on them and they didn't see any alternative. As this frustrated public reads about Microsoft slamming Linux they become interested in what Linux offers. The FREE nature of Linux draws them in and they begin to see the possibilities.
The latest Microsoft strategy is not to slam Linux but to attack it on technical merits. This will of course fail because Linux is much more advanced than Windows in a technical sense. Microsoft claims they offer technical value in integration of software with the OS. In reality this locks the user into Microsoft platforms. Unix integrates just fine, but instead of providing one a mammoth solution with tight integration, Unix provides building blocks that could be thought of as Lego's that snap together and build larger systems. The advantage is that one can buy or build the blocks from other sources and put them together using a more stable foundation. One does not have to use Lego's. Companies like IBM can sell IBM Brand building blocks that integrate with Open Source foundations and alternative blocks. Yet Microsoft will refuse to sell a block that connects with other blocks. They still don't play well with others. In some ways they have been guilty of making blocks that plug into Lego's but the other side of the block will only interface with other Microsoft blocks.
Microsoft will shoot themselves in the foot with this integrated strategy. Apparently they have learned nothing from the Anti-Trust Monopoly hearings and think they have won the battle. Unfortunately they will be caught off guard and will lose the war.
Microsoft may have a ton of money but we have time on our side and very little to lose. Compare it to a midevil siege and realize that we can maintain the siege indefinitely while the walls of the Microsoft fortress begin to crumble. Keep innovating, keep working at your craft, keep up the good fight.
I would not be surprised if Microsoft has secretly been experimenting with Linux internally and most likely have already ported Office/MSIE, etc to Linux. It would be a backup plan. Fortunately MS is so large that the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing and the head is unaware of either hand.
Hmm, actually that would be Piper, the guy who initiated the move from Microsoft:
This is hardly the type of case that one would want to use a poster-child for open source. Particularly as it appears that Sim desk is actually closed source and that this story is yet another bash Microsoft for any reason at all story. You don't think that maybe some of the slashdot editors are getting paid by a Microsoft competitor or something?Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I would think they would make a point of including Linux in that list if they actually supported it.
Essential all they are doing is running "office" on Citrix and selling the client really cheaply.
So now the city saves up front and pays for the rest of eternity? Isn't this the Model that MS wants to go to in the future anyway? I fail to see where this becomes a "victory" over MS, since I very much doubt the city of Huston will be implementing a fleet of Macs or WebTV on every desk!
the above is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of the little voices in my head
However, Microsoft "Embraced and Extended" RTF format, to the point where an RTF created in ClarisWorks, aka AppleWorks, is gibberish to MS Office and vice/versa. RTF was created by Apple as part of the original Macintosh effort.
.PDF works as a somewhat universal document format. And that's read-only unless you are either running Linux/MacOS X/*BSD or have Acrobat on the Windows/Classic MacOS side.
Alas, only
"But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever....In the digital world, we don't need back-ups..."
-- Jack Valenti
This is over-hype on part of USA Today. The guy who originally worked out the contract with SimDesk was questionably a con-artist on the take with SimDesk. Meanwhile, the guy who replaced him didn't renew the licensing with MS because they couldn't agree on the number of licenses needed, but they're not necessarily dumping their existing MS licenses. Upon review, I think the "Houston dumps MS for SimDesk" slant is sensationalistic. An alternative would be "Houston does the best it can with a bad situation."
Ok, have to respond to this. I just left a company that did tech support for both Microsoft and Dell. They are running WinXP and have been doing it for about 9 months now. If the person that you spoke to was not, it was because they are an outsourced call center who has other reasons not to upgrade (no money, no tech staff).
I worked in the call center industry for 3 years. You did not get new contracts if you were not running state of the art systems with the latest software (yes, including Linux). Spent a lot of time upgrading a lot of machines in several countries to WinXP.
This post is modded +3 Insightful and it is full of nothing but opinions.
Not amazing and Not Funny either.
Months ago, it was quietly announced that Peru had decided to retain their Microsoft licenses and to forgo the adoption of Linux as a wide use operating system.
I tried to submit a story to this effect, but it was rejected.. Go figure. If it isn't good news about Linux, it isn't news?
the license agreement big busiensses and governments sign to get the "special" price on M$ bloatware gives
M$ the "right" to show up anytime they want. Basically in signing the contract, the business signs away its rights, which is another reason why i encourage all my clients to go OSS.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
OpenOfficeMS Office export and import problems even with plain Word letters
I'll do you one better. I've run into OpenOffice import problems with Word a plain text document exported to RTF! Not being able a simple Word import was bad, not being able to handle it in RTF; that's an open document format.
I'm interested by the cluelessness of the Microsoft guy's assertions about IBM's relationship to open source and Linux. (Disclaimer: Yeah, I work for IBM, but I'm gonna try not to make this a sales pitch. Obviously this isn't an official statement, it's my opinion, errors are mine, blah blah.)
He says that IBM is relying on proprietary, closed software. He seems to think that you won't see an open source equivalent of WebSphere.
Well, WebSphere is based on Apache Tomcat. The IBM HTTP server bundled with WebSphere is a version of Apache. IBM WebSphere Studio Application Developer is based on Eclipse, another open source project.
I don't know what he means by "integration", but IBM has disk images for internal use that have a complete Linux, DB2 and WebSphere install, ready to run. They're used for demos; customers typically have very specific requirements, and want something that's custom integrated with their existing infrastructure. (Contrast with Microsoft's approach, where it's integrated only so long as everything else you own is Microsoft.)
Peter Houston asserts that IBM is pushing for a world of commodity Intel hardware running Linux. Well, not really--IBM has Linux running on iSeries (AS/400), pSeries (PowerPC) and zSeries (OS/390) as well as xSeries (Intel). (Yes, you can run Linux on your IBM mainframe.)
IBM is more than happy to sell you Linux solutions based on any of those hardware platforms, depending on how heavyweight your requirements are. I very much doubt that anyone is being encouraged to move from iSeries or zSeries to Intel; in fact, one recent ad campaign has been selling the benefits of consolidating hundreds of Intel boxes into one iSeries server.
He says that Linux open source makes it very difficult to have a revenue-generating business. Well, IBM generated over a billion dollars of revenue from Linux sales last year, in the middle of a recession. Not so difficult after all?
Single sign-on? Yeah, we do that, with Kerberos, LDAP, JAAS, or Tivoli products on Linux.
IBM a services company, not a software company? That's a surprise to those of us who work in the $12 billion+ IBM Software Group.
And of course, if you really want a slick UNIX OS that's fully integrated and never needs you to touch a command line, and you don't care about how proprietary it is, you could buy an Apple Xserve... Seems to me Microsoft loses that battle too.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Funny. I've actually used OpenOffice to repair Excel spreadsheets that MS Excel had corrupted and couldn't open anymore. Just open them in OO and save as, then open the file in Excel and it works perfectly.
I'm in Houston and Lee Brown IS a Democrat.
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
Dennis Piper left behind his e-mails before he left for San Diego. http://www.viahouston.com has them available along with a lot of background on Simdesk.
i've had the same problems you have!!!
oh yea one other thing...all systems were microsoft.
why do dumbass people insist on sending word documents?
when will they get it through their thick skulls that word is not a publishing program.
word documents do not look the same from computer to computer. this problem is not a linux problem...it's a stupid user problem. they think that if "it looks great on my screen...my job is done"
format changes incompatibilities because:
*they change because users have different templates
*they change because users have different printers
*they change because users have overrided auto formatting
*they change because users margins are different because of the printer
*they change because they are on different office versions
*they change because they are missing fonts the sender has,and the receiver does not.
Oh, plenty, see some of my other posts in this thread. Unfortunately I started from what I thought was the clincher, the fact that Piper, the procurement guy behind the bid is currently behind bars on charges he embezzled $200,000. (actually it was $294,000 but who's counting?)
It was only after I started digging that I discovered that the inspector generals report that 'exhonerates' Piper and the contract in fact does the exact opposite if you read the facts themselves rather than the whitewash conclusions drawn from them.
If you read the report you will find that this was not a Microsoft vs IAT contest at all. IAT was given the inside track against all the other bidders. Basically the contract was written in such a way that IAT was the only possible bidder for the $9.5 million contract.
One reason you can tell the deal stinks is that the whole point of adopting an outsourced model is that it allows you to scale your resources to your exact needs. If you need an extra 1000 seats you simply call up the vendor and send them a check. There is simply no rational justification for committing to purchase 15,000 seats in advance before you know what the demand is going to be. What you would do is to write a contract that allows you to purchase from 1000 to 15,000 seats in increments of 500 seats as required.
I have been involved in outsourcing procurement deals of this type for a very long time. Deals of this type are known as 'sweatheart deals', you know what they are as soon as you read the RFP. If you are not the favored bidder you can be absolutely certain that the only result of making a protest will be a whitewash investigation and your company being blacklisted in all future contracts.
This is not a party matter, the Mayor of Houston is a Democrat posing as an Independent but Republicans have pulled far larger scams in that citty. The biggest scam of all being the billions Enron and its accomplices ripped off California with the active help of Bush and Cheney.
Take a read of the comments in the OIG report, in particular the comments of the BMC and Advarion guys. The conclusions are pure whitewash but its much harder to hide the actual facts.
The contract was clearly a boondogle from start to finish and Piper gave IAT the inside track to win it. It was not only Microsoft that was frozen out, it was also IBM.Lotus (heard of them) and anyone else who could have provided the same functionality.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/