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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/
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
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/
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
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?