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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."
SimDesk
5450 Northwest Central, Suite 300
Houston, Texas 77092
Houston Area Phone: 713.690.6016
Toll-free Phone: 866.746.3375 (866-SimDesk)
Plus they've GOT to be using MS technology in the SimDesk applications themselves. At least they have Palm versions too.
I'm trying to figure out what the big advantage of using SimDesk would be vs. just installing Office and using Windows? Other than giving MS the finger. I guess it must just be the price difference, they probably got a great deal from the Houston based company.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
I found the last comment in his interview interesting:
"Integration" is the lever that MS uses to generate revenue. Customers are becoming increasingly aware of this and are assessing its value as best they can (given that they've lived in the MS Matrix monoculture for so long.)
Quoting from the Financial Times article that is another Slashdot story, too,
"Provided by the management for your protection."
"I can't help but wonder if this will become a trend."
:) But maybe now we'll see how MS reacts to competition when it can't just stamp it out. My guess is they'll run around like decapitated chickens for another few months at least.
I think it's safe to say this is already a trend, what with all the stories we've seen here in the last few months. Hopefully a trend that will become more and more widespread as the truth gets out there.
"Microsoft's changing attitude in competing with Linux -- no longer calling it a "cancer" but instead promoting the advantages of Windows."
Well it looks like Microsoft is finally catching onto the idea that it can't compete with Linux using their normal "FUD" tactics. Of course, touting the *cough*advantages*cough* of Windows may not be such a winning solution either.
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.
Unfortunately I have to post this as an AC but I'm speaking as one of the top geeks in a large place of work (~6,000 employees). We're not upgrading to XP and we're tesing a large group of people (~200) on Linux and OpenOffice on machines we've had in storage for a year. Thus far there have been no real technical problems although the user education has been a bit of work. Once they are familiar with an X desktop they spend most of their time using email and "Office" anyhow.
We love it, we love the price and we love the excellent support we get from newsgroups and FAQs/docs.
I've run into OpenOfficeMS Office export and import problems even with plain Word letters, so I can't imagine a complex spreadsheet with macros will work very well.
The owls are not what they seem
Internet Printing:
With SimPrinter, any computer can print to any printer connected to the Internet. This patented process works like this: User A is viewing a file in his office and needs to print it to his client's office for his client to sign. He selects a printer connected to a computer in his client's office. The mainframe computer at the Service Provider then spools the file to the computer in the client's office and instructs the printer there to print the data. Once the printing is complete, the computer in the client's office notifies the mainframe. The mainframe in turn notifies the user in User A's office.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I'm a Houstonian, and while I'm glad to see M$ take it in the rosebud, I've got to tell you this 'SimDesk' thing is a dog. They sprang up at the beginning of the .com bubble, and were handing out sample software disks left and right, yet another start-up that sells 'solutions' to problems that don't exist.
Apparently their goal was to allow all the poor and 'underprivledged' a way to email and do basic computer-type stuff to help them find jobs in the 'hot new internet economy'. My first reaction (as I watched the little marketspeak animations on the disk) was "gee, I doubt people looking for low-paying entry-level jobs need email that badly to find a job, considering I'm a programmer and I still end up faxing my resume to the HR dolt every time". After that I didn't think much of it, since I figured they'd die out with all the other fluff when the bubble burst.
Fast forward to now.. there's considerable controversy in the city government that the SimDesk contract was pushed through with little review, and that there may even have been some hanky-panky on the part of some officials in the city hall, i.e. "you scratch my back and I see to it you get that expensive computer contract with the city". This is hardly surprising, as it's business as usual with Lee Brown's administration. Someone mentioned the 'good old boy' network.. that's pretty accurate, but remember old "Out of Town" Brown is a Democrat, so basically the 'good old boy' network pushes through any pork project they want to enrich themselves, but first they have to make it out like it's helping the poor, downtrodden masses.
In the meantime, firefighters are dying because the city can't afford to put the minimum number of men on a truck. Thanks Lee Brown!
Dodgy patents aside, these guys seem to have a solid suite of apps there. The big attractiveness of ASP solutions to large companies is that the costs for this kind of software boils down to a very small (in comparison to MS software) monthly fee.
They don't have to worry about upgrades or patches, or support, the apps will work just fine.
Coupled with very strict desktop computer policies, they shouldn't need many sysadmins/desktop support heads at all. Just people to build new machines and replace broken mice.
It's very cost effective.
Of course, there is nothing stopping the Open Source community from coming out with something like this.
We have most of the apps. We know linux can do the automatic application delivery. All we need to do is kill Exchange and we're home and hosed.
Does anyone know of any Exchange server killers under an Open Source license?
There was local news coverage here in Houston on the SimDesk issue a while back, that went into some more interesting details. Of course first off, it was primarily chosen as a user interface for public-access computer in public libraries and whatnot. I don't think it was chosen for actual city computers, but for the computers they let the technology-less use at the libraries so they can surf and have email and type resumes, basically.
More importantly, there was a big uproar in Houston over how SimDesk got the contract. Apparently whoever owns SimDesk has some insider relations of some sort to the people making the decisions, and there was absolutely no bid process at all (no other local competition, no Microsoft, etc... ). Basically somebody's brother got the contract, and because it flies in MS face it made the news here as a big MS letdown. MS didn't stand a chance no matter who they are.
11*43+456^2
They save a whopping $1.6 million, and in return they get software that doesn't do spreadsheets, presentations, or small databases. On top of that, all they need is a 100% broadband connection on every machine! Wow! What a deal! Where do I sign up?? I mean, this thing has all of the functionality of WordPad, with the added requirement of a broadband connection! Woo hoo! Who thought of such a great product?
/. should post that, huh?
SimDesk isn't perfect. It lacks many sophisticated features of Office, such as the ability to customize spreadsheets, do slide presentations or work databases. The glaring shortfall: It has no track record, making it risky for companies hesitant to bet on unproven technology.
USA Today. Yeah, that's a great place to get good quality tech news. I think that the Enquirer has a good story about Steve Ballmer being Bill Gate's alien baby. Maybe
The USA Today article really glosses over the political battle on this issue and the good reasons for that battle. Many people in Houston are actually quite angry about the adoption of SimDesk, and it has nothing to do with pro-Microsoft bias or SimDesk's "unproven track record" thing.
This timeline would claim Houston spent $42,000 marketing a possible SimDesk contract before the proposal was even requested. This article suggests the City's CIO "had decided on that vendor before the city's mandatory bidding process had even started." I'll leave it as an excercise to the reader to google for more information, but my point is that this is a much more significant issue than USA Today suggests in the article.
I'm as happy about my city using non-monopoly software as the next guy, but I think in this instance there's a strong likelihood that the SimDesk contract was awarded in a non-competitive environment anyway. Surely this is not the way any of us want alternatives to MSFT to be chosen.
Don't get excited guys. This is just Texas politics as usual. Doesn't it seem odd that the CITY OF HOUSTON chose a software product from a HOUSTON ENTREPRENEUR. This is how things is done down in 'good ole boy' Texas.
Think Ross Perot and his software billions.
Think G.W and the whole Enron fiasco.
While I won't comment on the merits of SimOffice, it may in fact be a viable windows alternative, this deal was as much motivated (if not more so) by Texas backroom dealing as it was by technical merit.
"Ned, I wouldn't worry too much about this contract. Seems to me I've already got my boys committed elsewhere. You be sure and thank Maisie for this fine pie."
All your base are belong to us!
Working for the houston civic authority doing IT support, I can tell you that many of us are severly displeased with this decision. It boiled down to the 'old boy' network whent he choice was made for SimDesk, and many of us openly suspect a rash of kickbacks in this lowball bid win.
Almost all of us are MS certified types (I have my MCSE), and a few of us use linux at home or as web servers for some of our intranet infrastructure. The running gag is that the change over in hardware in terms of on site servers and bandwith enhancements will cost us more than three times our current agreement with MS for our existing systems. MS had lowballed too, offering us a very attractive licensing and support package that was not only reasonable (by MS standards), but significantly less than their 'going rate' packages.
Alternatives in using pure *nix were also presented, some rather attractive on the face of it, but ultimately they were rejected for training and hardware costs, as well as for the fact that they are not very well known or supported in the kind of environment we have going on here in Houston. Over half of our PCs would have had some kind of driver problem, more than 2/3rds of our existing software and DB systems would have been rendered incompatible, an worse still there were no alternatives for some of our vital statistics and infrastructure support apps. A wash.
This whole thing has us more than a little upset, and some of us laughing as we learn more about SimDesk. It's bandwith intensive, and many of our outlying and important network nodes are on less than a typical home broadband connection (with up to 50 user machines and servers!).
Don't believe everything you read... it wasn't a rejection of MS because it is MS, but rather an old boy deal done by friends and mutal friends.
Yeah, it's big, monolithic, and evil, but what gives Microsoft the right to threaten an "audit and penalties?"
I mean, if Microsoft showed up at my door (if I were a corporation) and said "We're coming in to inspect your computers," why not just say "Go to hell!"
Does anyone know what the Microsoft audit process is, and how they enforce these penalties?
This decision had nothing to do with the fact that Windows is too expensive but with the fact that city Houston is too corrupt. I can't believe that choosing a small company's, closed proprietary solution over a large company's closed proprietary solution had anything to do with cost or for that matter quality. At least M$ will be around five years from now, though probably forcing users to upgrade to the latest greatest version, which doesn't matter since the biggest selling point of SimDesk is that it looks like M$ and can read M$ files. Anyhow I've been around the block in Houston a few times and doing business here is all about who you know, and I don't mean it in the greasy salesperson networking sort of way. Houston is about nepotism, greasing palms, and paying people off. Dig around a little and you'll find a relative, lover, or crony of someone in Houston city government calling the shots at SimDesk.
I am a virus, put me in your
> 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.
I'd say that it's just a case of a city supporting its own entrepreneurs, supporting its own tax generating companies, supporting its own residents.
It's like buying from your neighborhood hardware store, grocery store, or five and dime. Oh wait, they're all national chains now... Looks like folks didn't shop there enough to keep them alive.
As a Houstonian, I'm glad to see a Houston business getting support from the city.
The Chairman and CEO of SimDesk, Mr. Waters, is "responsible for the strategic direction and management of SimDesk".
Mr Waters was founding chairman and CEO of Browning-Ferris Industries, Inc. (BFI) and served BFI from 1969 until 1997, when BFI was sold to Allied Waste for $9 billion in cash. During the 1980s, BFI pleaded guilty to charges of price fixing. More details:
They would seem to have the makings of a worthy successor to Microsoft.
What's it called when a city practices nepotism, except without the relatives?
It's called "keeping the money in the city" and it's actually what local governments should do.
Oh please. Anyone with a little ingenuity can solve this problem. First, you can configure office so that the default file format is RTF. RTF supports most of what people do with Word which is letter writting, memos, and other simplistic documents. RTF importing is actually quite good.
A little procmail scripting coupled with a Windows machine (or 3) setup as automated document converter (a little VB scripting) solves external communication needs nicely.
If this is too tough for you, you can also setup an autoresponder system telling people to resend their documents in a more open format such as PDF or RTF, etc.
The argument that it's the de-facto industry standard so you can't change is a red-herring.
Complex spreadsheets are a little more difficult, but only a small fraction of people use them anyway. You leave them on Windows (or run vmware, crossover office, etc.) If you can convert 90% + of your office to Linux / OO, you win. It's actually amazing how good gnumeric and OO are with excel sheets.
I think MS is very worried about it's public image. Why else are there so many MS trolls here. Not only that but thel also mod each up like hell.
War is necrophilia.
At last Microsoft is starting to realize that competition must be based on the relative quality of the products. This is the first time I've EVER heard a Microsoft spokesperson come close to suggesting that Microsoft should compete based on the merits of it's product.
A promising sign indeed.
This is hardly the type of case that one would want to use a poster-child for open source.
e t-again story. Microsoft sent them a letter "suggesting" that they might be audited if they didn't sign up for the new license. Houston told them to jump in a lake. This is a win for everybody, not just Open Source or Anti-Microsoft.
There isn't one word in either the article or the lead-in that says they switched to open source. The entire claim was that they chose against Microsoft.
this story is yet another bash Microsoft for any reason at all story.
No, this is a bash-Microsoft-for-abusing-their-monopoly-power-y
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
This sounds like fud. My organization exchanges OO documents and spreadsheets with MSOffice users all the time with no problem.
Have you honestly tried it LATELY?
Not to mention that on my own work PC, I can save a document from Word 2002 into Word 95 format, open the back-saved version, and see quite a different document. Yes, there are good reasons I'm doing this--it's not just to pick on Uncle Bill.
And OpenOffice can at least load the MacOS Word 6.0 files, the back-saved Win95 files, and Word 2002 files without screwing them up much worse than Microsoft's own office suite does. The ensuing hand-tweaking is what leads me to distribute most of our stuff as PDF these days, but occasionally our other volunteers need documents they can edit in their office suite of force^W choice.
There's your evidence. Yeah, I know, it's only one user, and it's anecdotal. But I'm sure there are others.
"I call a baby goat a 'goatse.'" -- my non-Internet-savvy 6-year-old stepdaughter
And where are your references on these "facts" of yours? I'll bet they are where your head is, i.e., where the sun doesn't shine...You obviously don't know crap about real estate economics. Taxes and water/garbage costs are only a small part of a renter's rent. Maintenance and upkeep are a much larger part of the bill than taxes and water/garbage fees.
And the reason we still have a regressive property tax system in Texas is because the White Republicans in charge will never adopt a more fair state income tax because that way rich White conservatives will have to pay their fair share of taxes, unlike the situation today.The city has very little direct involvement with the sports stadiums. I guess you have never heard of the Houston/Harris County Sports Authority The train route is actually 7.5 miles. It begins next to the University of Houston Downtown (and runs on Main Street about 1/2 mile from the baseball park and basketball stadium), runs next to Houston Community College Central Campus, the Museum District, Rice University, and the Texas Medical Center before it gets to the Astrodome area and the new football stadium. It is hardly a stadium to stadium shuttle.This paragraph is so full of errors it is laughable. There is no SINGLE bus line that tracks the train. There are at least 6 different routes, and many of them have massive traffic to the Medical Center and downtown Houston.
As far as your second assertion goes, the whole Astrodome area was once prairie, but now the Medical Center is growing to the point where it almost takes up the whole area. There are beaucoup apartments, office buildings, stores, car dealers, etc. in the area, so it HAS been revitalized!And this ties into SimDesk how? Besides the "connection" in your fevered brain that is...That proves it. This post is full of errors that it cannot be moderated as "informative". It is actually pure Texas-grade bullshit so it cannot considered "insightful". It is really a troll and should be moderated as such.
Moderators, please check the facts before moderating someone as "informative". Someone needs to step up and bitchslap this piece of crap before anyone else thinks there is even a grain of truth to it...
A man who wants nothing is invincible