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Munich Spurns Steve Ballmer's Software Rebates

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the heise-news dept.

Kurt Pfeifle writes "Steve Ballmer's recent trip to Munich to offer up to 90% rebates for the Microsoft Software Assurance and Licenses was in vain. The ruling party of Germans biggest city and self-proclaimed 'technology capital' now decided to migrate 14.000 workstations to Linux and an OSS office suite. A study comparing the alternatives had assigned 6218 (out of 10.000) points to Linux/OSS, while the MS Windows platform only scored 5293. Babelfish translation of the latest newsticker story."

8 of 736 comments (clear)

  1. slashdot sucks by tarzan353 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    suck it

    1. Re:slashdot sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      that's such an intelligent and inspiring comment

  2. Last one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    finally

  3. lol FP fp fp fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    FyAdDD FYaD LoL

  4. Re:Munich isn't Germany's biggest city ... by the+uNF+cola · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    How big is it in kilometres? Or miles... or inches :)

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    "I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo

  5. babelwhat? by pphrdza · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Boris Schwartz, deputy leader of the parliamentary group, takes position: "the decision Munich town councillor per Linux into the monopoly-like position of Microsoft will strike a breach. With the city Munich decides for the first time a large German municipality for open SOURCE often commodity. Beside larger economy for the city this is also a contribution for genuine competition on the market for software.

    Gotta love those computer translators...

  6. Ugh! Floppies are bad! by he-sk · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I don't even remember using them anymore. CD-RWs replace them perfectly, and LAN connectivity even more so.

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    Free Manning, jail Obama.
  7. Re:they should have taken windows by rusko · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    not sure if you are comparing apples to apples here. while linux is definitely easier to maintain server-side, in my experience maintaining desktop linux machines for users who have little ability to fix things on their own (and ample ability to break them on their own) is quite a headache. this is spoken from a pragmatic point of view - i knew i was going to get flamed for saying something against linux on slash and i am getting exactly what i expected. there is no need whatsoever to get personal - i am a software engineer and code on linux for a living, so your insinuation does not apply. we have had several people join our linux team that had only windows experience prior to that and although they picked up the coding aspect pretty fast, they still managed to break their boxes regularly on the user side of things. also, keep in mind that the city already has windows admins on staff, while linux admin duties will have to be outsourced before they build up a cadre of linux admins. regardless of the merties and ease of administration of linux, this is going to be a major expense. also, factor in the fact that they are not going to download isos off the internet - they are going to buy boxed versions from companies like suse or rh, which (a guesstimate here), will cost as much as the windows licenses (with the 90% discount factored in). paul