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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."
Think about it. For the first time in a decade, what with all the city and national governments giving the dirty bird to Microsoft in favor of Linux or other alternatives, Redmond has finally realized that it has real competition again. Better, Microsoft can't 'embrace and extend' this competition without a significant alteration of their core business plan.
This means that, for the foreseeable future, MS users will be getting a product that will be the result of a pricewar with Free software, will have features that compete with OSS features, and will have a level of quality that attempts to approach OSS quality.
I don't think that Microsoft will belly up any time soon, regardless of how wonderful that would be. I do see Windows getting very good in the near future since quality and ease of use are the only ways it has left to compete with Linux.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
It's starting to look like the US recession will be one of the best things to happen to the Open-Source movement.
No artist tolerates reality. -- Nietzsche
This means that, for the foreseeable future, MS users will be getting a product that will be the result of a pricewar with Free software, will have features that compete with OSS features, and will have a level of quality that attempts to approach OSS quality.
Have a look at simdesk.com - it's covered in words like "proprietary" and "patented". Houston's decision is neither particularly good nor bad for OSS.
I'm not seeing anything at the web site that says this is OSS?
;) Wonder if SimDesk is getting any tax breaks from Houston?
They don't need to embrace and extend this software because they already HAVE software that does everything this purports to do, the MS Office Suite. This is just a clone of Office, nothing innovative, I can't download the source, heck I can't even get a price list off of their web site.
I think this is just a case of price. The city of Houston got a great deal from a Houston based company. What's it called when a city practices nepotism, except without the relatives? Oh yeah, politics.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
The actual meat of the story is interesting, an a hopeful sign, but so is the lead paragraph. It presents Microsoft as bullying it's clients into agreeing to it's terms.
Nothing new there, but when this is the tone taken by mainstream media, and seen as so non-controversial that it's mentioned and then passed over, then Microsoft have already lost their key battle. Their marketing depends on them being seen as the safe option. If they are seen as the problem, then (as here) people will go looking for solutions.
From the interview with Peter Houston:
I still believe Linux is an extension of the Unix paradigm. It's a command-line-focused approach that's not particularly designed to be user friendly. The Windows approach is very different.
This kind of shows how clueless Microsoft really is about competing with Linux. Lest anyone forget that Windows was nothing more than a extension of a command-line-focused operating system called MS-DOS that wasn't particularly use friendly? Microsoft just started to hide the command-line with Windows 95. The same is happening with Linux, as it gains more acceptance. More and more tools are being developed that eliminate the need for command-line work.
True, any distro of Linux isn't quite at the XP level not needing to use the command-line, but it's starting to head in that direction. And if more and more companies and, more importantly, governments start to actively look at switching, there will be a big boom in eliminating the command-lind dependence.
After reading all this, it sounds like Houstin opted for SimDesk only because they felt trapped by Microsoft licensing issues.
It's not clear to me they will save money, although it does seem clear that by doing this they can at least quantify the amount of money they need to spend. I wonder if these kinds of MS sales tactics can be argued as entrapment or bait & switch? Customers shouldn't need to feel like they must pay millions to get MS off their back, especially when the amount involved is in dispute.
A greater concern for Houstin is where the data will be stored. It's not clear from the website or the marketing blurbs if the SimDesk apps drop documents locally or remotely to the SimDesk server. At a minimum, the patent-pending Trashbin is purported to be remote - which would give you access to this content from anywhere. I sure hope this system is secure!
Of course, the fact that they are looking to partner with Unisys is reason enough to be concerned. Remember GIF? TBPH, Microsoft doesn't look like a bad alternative here -- if anything this should be a wakeup call for MS that license audits need to be approached with extreme caution.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
I think it depends what you're doing. If you're sending information to customers, then simply export your OpenOffice docs to PDF. You should be doing this anyway, even if you're using MS Word, because the PDF is the only way to ensure your document will be delivered properly. Heck, even MS Word isn't compatible with MS Word!
If you need to collaborate, then encourage everyone on the team to either adopt an open standard (HTML, RDF, etc.) or get them onboard with OO.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
Given the small budgets, byzantine approval processes, and both political and bureaucratic stumbling blocks that affect civic IT departments (and I sadly speak from experience), the most effective place to get cost savings is at the client side.
Only a very few people at the civic level need independent workstations, and the cost of support per user is higher than that of private-sector firms of comparable size. Ripping out the PCs and replacing them with Sun Rays or Wyse terms is a bright solution for cash-strapped cities. However, don't confuse this with a move to open source: as has been pointed out above, it's a fallacy to think that "proprietary" is synonymous with "Microsoft."
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
I disagree. If everybody was honest, you'd be right. But that's not the case.
Microsoft has spent years and years outright lying, cheating, and stealing, in order to come to market dominance and stay there. (If you don't believe me, go ahead and review the anti-trust court cases.)
So *any* win for non-MS companies, even proprietary ones, is good. It will help mature the industry, and make it less lopsided. I'm not interested in the complete destruction of MS - that'd probably end up being just as bad as what we have now; a monoculture.
But these *are* wins. Microsoft has less money in its pockets to lie about FOSS, for instance. It has less clout to twist people's arms.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I don't know many actual developers who concern themselves with the above mentality. The most successful ones just seem interested in cobbling together interesting bits of code regardless of how big or little the perceived audience for the code is.
I think the real importance of most of the zealots is about on par with the importance of the MS user groups. They're promotional mouthpieces, but their real-world effect is shadowed almost entirely by the effect of the actual software.
So? Quite a few people have absolutely no interest in complex spreadsheet macros: giving, recieving or creating. You're simply describing an artifical problem.
This is simply another example of 95% of people being disinterested in 95% of msoffice features.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I read the article. You're merely incapable of thinking abstractly or in terms of metaphor.
Their aim is infact to turn their PC's into X terminals. No, they won't be running eXeed. However, they will be using web browsers to achieve the same end result.
However, the "X terminal" is the model they are attempting to immitate.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Youre making an assumption that the Simdesk business plan doesnt end with:
2. Get bought out by Microsoft.
3. Profit!
This is exactly the reason why a win for ANY proprietary software company is a not a win for Free Software.
Yes, Piper may be a liar, a cheat, and a thief (we don't even have a plea in the case to which you refer), but not in connection with the city of Houston's bidding process. As we see from material you quoted:
"The county District Attorney, in a separate probe, examined Piper's financial records and stumbled into evidence that Piper may have embezzled $200,000 from his previous employer, Reliant Energy." (emphasis added)
In fact, I'm at a loss to explain the newspaper's decision to drag this unrelated scandal into the article. I hope it wasn't to discredit one side in the Microsoft vs. SimDesk contest.
"I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse." -- Groucho Marx
Maybe not good for OSS, but it does provide overall competition in the market, which MS is in desparate need of.
Once OpenOffice and StarOffice mature some more, and we see the Linux community develop some if the integrations that MS claims it can't, THEN OSS becomes another, and more serious competitor.
In space, no one can hear you moo.
That's it. This isn't a win for OSS or for Linux, it's a win for everyone that doesn't rely on M$ day in and day out. It legitimizes what we do to people that don't understand.
I have to ask, why was Tatro SOOO against this move? So much so that Piper was investigated for rigging the bid but later nothing was found. This sounds like what the Microsoft sales reps were saying at the beginning( before the contract was actually awarded ). Is/was Tatro receiving funds from Microsoft?
I just loved how the Texas Attorney General backed out of the DOJ/States vs Microsoft case when Dell and another Texas company pressured such a move. You know Microsoft 'asked' these companies to do this.... What did they 'ask' of Tatro??????
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
What kind of rigging is possible when there is only one bid?
The absolute best way of rigging a bid process is to ensure that there is only one qualified bidder. I've seen several techniques used to arrange this:
And, if all of that doesn't scare away all of your potential bidders, you can still tell your preferred vendor to lowball their estimate to make sure they're the lowest bid, planning for "cost overruns". If you want to be really dirty, you can even leak the other bidders' proposals and prices to your preferred vendor so that they can be sure to be the cheapest. Doing that is a good way to end up in jail, though.
There are *many* ways to rig a bid, and I'm sure I haven't seen them all.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
This is hardly the type of case that one would want to use a poster-child for open source.
.NET ads at the top of Slashdot, they are being paid by both sides.
Who said anything about open source? One second look at the Simdesk front page throws up words like 'proprietry' and 'patented'. See next paragraph.
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 are waaay off the mark. A big win for a company that is competing with M$ Office is news because breaking the M$ hold on the file formats is important for open source making headway into the desktop market.
At the moment, M$ can change its file format as much as it likes to cut off any competitors. Those offering compatibility have no choice except to play catch-up.
If large government departments and corporations start using "Office compatiable" software then they are going to be upset if M$ starts producing incompatiable WP files. These are the kind of people that M$ have to listen to.
When large segments of markets start using different competing "Office compatible" suites then they will start making their users saving by default to a format that they *know* will work in all the suites (eg Word v.XXX). Once everybody gets locked into this version, and it's difficult for M$ to change it without upsetting too many people, then instead of playing catch-up everybody (open source and proprietary) can concentrate on polishing accurate import and export filters. This would be excellent for consumers.
You don't think that maybe some of the slashdot editors are getting paid by a Microsoft competitor or something?
Judging by the
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
"...it appears 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?"
Most people here don't like Microsoft for very good reasons. Just because the editors seem to dislike Microsoft (which I would assume) doesn't mean they're being paid, doesn't mean they're posting articles with large bias, or only posting anti-MS articles. The editors have an interest in Microsoft and what happens to them, as do most computer geeks.
Microsoft, AFAIK the biggest software company in the world and certainly the most powerful, just lost Houston. That is news. I'm sure the editors got a smile on their face and said, "Sweet, post it, sounds cool," but that doesn't mean anyone is getting paid off or that the Slashdot editors are largely biased.
This is a site for nerds. Nerds, in a large part, dislike Microsoft for very reasonable reasons. This news is interesting. Quit reading between the lines; this isn't CNN, this is a fun community news site.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.