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US Army Signs $471,000,000 Deal for Microsoft Software
zero_offset writes "According to this article at Yahoo, Microsoft will provide software for 494,000 Army computers during the next six years. At roughly $950 per computer this clearly involves more than just the OS, although the article unfortunately doesn't provide details, and I was unable to find any references to this on the Microsoft website." The great things about this deal: the Army is going through a reseller, when clearly they have the purchasing power to buy direct; and most of the computers they purchase are normal consumer machines which will be purchased with Windows and Office already installed, so the Army will be paying twice for each machine.
Just goes to show how powerful lobbyists are. Well at least this levels the playing field a bit on the world military scale ... stop an M1 Abrams with KLEZ
like the Army is paying for Microsoft's fine...
Justice Department: Bad Microsoft.. you must pay $500 million and promise to never do it again.
Defense Deparment: Here Microsoft.. $471 million for you...
Right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing? Or does it?
Before you all start griping, just remember... This is almost 1/2 a trillion dollars that won't be spent on "smart" bombs. Although I am not for the us military in general, I am all about it wasting it's money. Each $ wasted could be a life saved.
Was this a positive post for our government wasting money?
What are you thinking man? Don't end your post here, elaborate.
Why on earth can you concieve of this being a good thing? Because there will be fewer smart bombs purchased?
This just in, If we want bombs, we buy bombs.
We are in a republican controlled government. All that changes is the size of the debt.
http://use.perl.org
Pretty sad that our military wastes extreme amounts of money on computer systems that they know they will have to upgrade shortly (more $$$, no jobs), will keep them open to the threat of widespread viruses (more $$$, no new jobs), and contains code that they can not see (no new jobs). This is fucking sad, man.
While the cost of microsoft products, retail or OEM is substantially higher than Open Source alternatives, there is a consideration that is not addressed by that cost: Training.
Most of the kids going into the army have some experience with computers: computers running Windows. The more familiar new recruits are with Army technology the less training will be required and the less time/resources/money need to be invested in getting newly enlisted GIs up to speed. The military is like a business in many ways. They write memos, reports, letters, make spreadsheets and send email. The most efficient way of getting all personel on the same page technologically is to deploy the "lowest common denominator". That is to say, software that is good enough and easy enough to use.
But a recent West Wing episode pops into my head.
Anyway, I've looked at military spending differently since that episode...
Oh, and Microsoft sucks... blah, blah, blah...
Davak
Keith Hodson, a Microsoft spokesman, said the contract could help the Army reduce its costs and "validates the Army's belief in our security model."
I can't wait to see this. I'm not sure if the Army will be significant enough pressure to make m$ security better. In fact, they're a small piece in the bigger pie.
While this is probably cheaper than the defense departments $300 toilet seat vendors (hey, they probably at least had a backup toilet seat tho), it doesn't make too much sense to me. I'm reminded of the Navy vessel that crashed running NT.
Given that XP is still having issues with updates and such, I'm wondering what the Army was thinking. But then again, that is often the case..
This is cant be just a software deal. The Army has to replace the existing (i'm assumption) 490,000 desktop hardware if any Microsoft's lastest (or the next three year version)software has to run on it.
if its a Hardware deal as well, where is the Headlines on DELL/IBM/HP bagging multi million dollar Army deal!
Wrong.
They are site licensing the server products, almost the entire product line. Sharepoint, SQL Server, etc etc etc ad nauseaum.
Exchange too.
The details aren't being disclosed because MS doesn't want their other customers getting pissed at the ball breaking that the Army gave them.
I happen to have met both the current and the next Army CIO. They are both _incredibly_ intelligent people. In particular LTG Cuviello (current) is pretty damn motivated and kicks some serious ass. These people are not going to sign a bad deal.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
We all do remember what happened to the USS Yorktown in 1998, yes?
Yeah, it works so well that the glorious US army is attacking one weak country on the verge of self implosion after the other instead of going after someone who can defend himself, like, for example, uh, North Korea?
I suggest you read this Wired article to see how well it works. They are using Microsoft Chat on the battlefield, for crying out loud! Yes, the one with the comic characters, where the staff seargant looks like a big breasted bimbo. Nothing inspired a feeling of technical superiority like that, if you ask me.
At least the important systems run Linux.
For workstations, certainly not. MS is the standard. However, when bidding on a logistics contract, one of our partners had to get many exemptions to be able to bid with us because their part of the solution was IIS/ASP based.
-no broken link
I'm a soldier in Army Reserve and my unit is an administrative unit, which means that we make heavy use of our computers. The computers are mainly used for typing memos, making simple spreadsheets, and downloading new forms and publications off of the Internet. I do not see why a Linux or BSD machines running Open Office, Mozilla, and xPDF (or Reader for UNIX) cannot replace the current Windows machines. I have talked to soldiers that came from other reserve and active duty units and they also use their computers for similar purposes. Only software that we use that is not on Linux is FormFlow, which is one of the crapiest software I've used (yes, even worse than Windows ME). It is a simple software, so it shouldn't cost much to program something like that for non-Windows platform.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
And if you really think about it..... MS does pay taxes on it's income. so.... of the 471 MILLION, at least 30-40% of that is going to be going right back in to the governments hands, so.... you do the math.
www.oobersworld.com - For those that ride.
Imagine if they'd spent that amount of money on a space shuttle replacement, or a manned^H^H^H^H^H^Hpersonned mission to Mars.
Stick Men
I'd bet that a huge majority of Slashdot readers use Windows as their primary OS. Both at home and work. I've tried a few different Linux distros at home, but keep coming back to Windows because I know how to do things in it and it's just easier. If time wasn't an issue I'd try harder to kick the habit. I do use Mozilla because I'm hooked on tabbed browsing and mouse gestures so give me a little credit.
Where do the idle rich get their money? How do the Hilton sisters get so much money to go out on the town? Where did Andrew Luster get the money to go partying and then fly off to Mexico? Certainly not from working. That's not how the 43% of Forbes 400 richest Americans got on that list - they inherited their way *directly* onto it. Where does their money come from? They take it from workers creating wealth - workers go into work, transform raw materials into more valuable commodities through their labor, and the heir takes a portion of that and goes and spend it however they want. You hear a lot about how we go out and work so our tax dollars can be spent on people on welfare not working in the corporate media, but how often do they talk about how we work so profits taken from the wealth we create goes to feed some idle class heir who has never worked a day in his life? Rarely, if ever.
Hell there is an even bigger scandal brewing at NASA over sweetheart software deals being used to pump the stock of a certian Indian software company.
I will post it when I figure out how to sanatize my source
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Modified by whom? Certified for DoD use by whom? As for "services ...the army needs", even the army can't tell you that, so they'd say "just make it do everything". Also, who's going to port all the lame crap software the army already has that runs under windows? What if some of it can't be ported?
The problems you described do not happen with a properly configured system.
People don't forget passwords or forget which printer is theirs in Linux? [scoff!]
I would guess even someone in B. CO 1/509th Abn could figure out.
Figure out isn't the problem. You say Linux can be made unbreakable. Nobody who's ever given anything to an 11B (infantryman) ever calls anything unbreakable. You can't depend upon something being robust to protect it, you have to have people available who can fix it when it breaks.
No offence intended.
None taken. Hooah.
SGT DunMalg 3/187th MI Bde 101st ABN Div (Air Assault) (1987-1993)
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Er, hate to reply to my own message but I hit the damn submit button...
I believe that if it's at all possible, government money should be used to benefit the general population. Funding open-source projects is a good way to get the job done and benefit the tax payers as well. This project would've been perfect for that.
Instead the money just goes to fund the richest corporation in the world.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
I fully agree, most of my users have serious problems just operating windows, let alone doing work on it. If you threw Linux at them, they would just stop using the computer and go back to doing everything on paper.
another thing is that while the liscense costs for all the software that they're getting isn't horrible price-gouging, we don't fucking need it.
I'm in an officer school, the only function for having a database is for keeping track of student information. I already have an access database in place with an oracle database slowly replacing it. I don't need or want SQL and NONE of my users need it, either. we don't need to buy a shit load of liscenses at slightly above prices, what we need is to break that chunk of cash up and give it to the units so that their Sysadmins and IMOs can determine what the unit needs.
I'll give you a little story as an example of how trying to add too many pieces to the puzzle WILL fuck up a supply chain:
earlier this year, I needed 14 computers. I sat down and figured out the paperwork bullshit and forms for it (I'm actually Infantry and have zero training for admin stuff). I priced out how much it would cost for what we needed and found several retailers that we could go through. I sent that stuff up to higher and after about 2 months of that paperwork going through commitee and bueracracy, I got 14 computers that were totally different from what I requested, cost more, lacked software liscenses and hardware that my users needed for them to do their jobs.
anyone higher than brigade levels has no fucking clue what a battalion needs, and even then they don't really know.
this whole package for stuff we don't need irritates me.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
This is unfortunately extremely true. I'm in the Army myself, and I usually don't even bother to talk to anyone from our Automations department (who actually receive about 24 weeks training in Windows, Solaris, and UNIX... although almost exclusively Windows). We have 18 people in our Automations department, 3 of which have ever *heard* of Linux, 1 of which has heard of Linux because I showed it to them, and the other 2 who actually use it at home. The other 15 I think would go braindead before I even got to a command line (and remember, they've supposedly had training on UNIX).
That's the state most Brigades in the Army are in right now. We're actually lucky to have 2 people who know what Linux is. Those 2 people actually get 95% of the work done as well, the other 16 sit around and unlock accounts for people when they enter their password wrong 4 times and make bad patch cable (they've never made one right for me yet... I stole some crimpers from them a while ago and just make my own now if I need some).
The sterotype that the US Government has all the coolest stuff is really way off. We may have the coolest stuff that goes "BOOM", but we also have a monopoly on the technology. When it comes to computer technology we are in many ways still in the 1970s, and continuing to fall behind.
Dak
First, as many other people have pointed out, these machines aren't being used in "life or death" situations, they're for normal desktop stuff. Did it ever occur to any of you that perhaps Windows does indeed provide a better desktop experience than your average Linux distro? Heresy, I know. Nothing could possibly be better than Linux. And BTW, for those of you repeating those tired "BSOD" jokes: have you used a version of Windows past 98 or what? Win2K and XP are pretty damn stable. A BSOD on either of them is about as likely as a kernel panic in Linux. Get over it, it's time to retire those BSOD jokes.
Second, unless any of you have any real experience with the costs associated with outfitting an entity as large as the US Army with computers, I don't think you're qualified to make assumptions about how Linux "obviously" would've saved 50-90% of the cost. There's a saying in business that when you have people bidding on a contract you throw away the top N% (because they're ripping you off) and the bottom N% (lowballers -- they're obviously underestimating the cost of the job and are under-experienced) and pick among the people in the middle. Hmm, where do you think someone like Redhat would show up relative to other bidders? Furthermore, what makes you think that the Army didn't rule out Redhat (or whatever other "Linux support" company) primarily because they have shown NO history of being able to handle customers with needs as large as the Army? When was Redhat's last $470 million contract, hmm? Don't assume that they'd be up to the job of support just because MS can do it and anything MS can do Linux can do better.
I mean really guys, come on. Don't let your seething hatred of MS blind you to realities of the situation. Maybe, just maybe, with all things considered MS was the better choice.
One of "Murphy's Laws of Combat" says, "Never forget that your weapon was manufactured by the lowest bidder". The gist of it is, basically, that you should keep in mind that the gear you're issued is crap, and you shouldn't assume it's going to work when you need it to.
Looks like nowadays, you still get crap, but you don't get to pick low bids. Lovely. Makes me really, really glad I'm already a veteran and too old to draft or drag back in.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
I hope that everyone reads your comment YrWrstNtmr and then shuts up about switching to linux. Its pretty obvious that the majority of people on /. have never been involved with large organizations and the 10+ year development chains that you often run into when making choices about what you can, and cannot do with computers for that organization.
Using Windows SAVED the taxpayers money in this situation. I'll say that a little more firmly than YrWrstNtmr did, because its absolutely true. "Ahh, what a tangled web we weave" is very true of large organizations, who, over time, work, re-work, custom interfaces, databases, apps, etc., into such a web of interdependency, that you'd have to be DEVOTED, no, more like FERVENTLY in support of using linux to want to even begin to consider touching those interdependencies.
This might be true in other government departments, but year after year Congress gives the Pentagon more money than they ask for.
You guys have to remember that there is a HUGE digital divide out there and getting soldiers with out much education comfortable with computers tends to be quicker and easier with Windows.
Therefore you want to simplify the training by standardizing on a system which not only holds the record for security vulnerabilities, but whose source has been delivered to the electronic warfare departments of most of our potential enemies but NOT to our own academic-community security specialists?
What do you do the next time there's a conflict and some new crop of blended-threat self-propagating worms (locusts?) suddenly takes out the US Army's entire office infrastructure?
==============
While you're at it, why are you advocating depending on the NON-standardized training the recruits got as civilians rather than teaching them "The Army Way"? (But if you MUST, why not use a Windows-like interface and workalike basic apps, ala Lindows or KDE + OpenOffice, for the basic stuff? They have to learn the army-specific apps anyhow. Meanwhile there's a good chance the next crop of high-school students will be learning on open source platforms rather than Windows, due to developments already discussed on Slashdot.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I would much rather have our government hire IT professionals that create OSS and implement it than outsourcing everything to private companies that use proprietary code.
Let me fill you in on how it works. I can only speak to the USAF method, and not the Army, because that is what I have intimate knowledge of.
Most custom apps are written in-house. Not contracted out, and certainly not contracted out to Microsoft. MS (and other vendors) provides the framework. Windows, Office, SQLServer, Oracle, etc. The actual applications are written in house. Either by one of the main software houses (1 for Air Combat Command (Langley AFB), and 1 for Air Mobility Command(Scott AFB)). Or in the case of small tools, maybe by a knowledgable user in the particular office. And there are a LOT of those. If the project gets big enough, it may get taken over by one of the aforementioned s/w houses.
The USAF (ACC at least), had/has a "Self Help Lab'. An organization, in need of a tool/application, can send a couple of 'user-experts', and the guys teach them how to build and maintain their own code. I was the NCOIC of the first one of those at Langley.
The USAF owns the code for all these applications. There is no 'proprietary code', owned by an outside vendor for these tools. Does the USAF have the source code for MSProject? No. Does it matter? Again, no. If MS decides to make Project2004 incompatible with Project2000...you have 2 choices. Don't buy 2004 and stay on your current version, or modify your custom app that sits on top of it (of which you DO have the code for). The exact same thing would happen with a app that had been outsourced in OSS. Don't upgrade or modify.
Sure...some things get outsourced. But guess what? Quite often, the source code is part of the deal! And can be maintained/modified, in house, forever and ever.
Be it a custom app on top of MSProject, or an aircrew medical records screening process, or a training munition distribution application...the USAF already owns and has posession of the code, to modify at will.
Although OSS is not easy to use, it can be. An easy to use interface is just that, an interface. It is evolutionary. Things become easier to use overtime with advances in technology.
And only just now are OSS tools becoming viable. Even just a year or two ago, Linux as the base, and all OSS tools on top of that, was not a viable prospect.
Microsoft unfortunately tried to go for ease-of-use before having a strong foundation. They did more harm to the IT industry than most people realize.
On that we agree. And eventually, we will dig ourselves out of this hole. Once a complete end to end alternate is available. The penguin is almost there, but not quite.
The military CIO's are not stupid people. On the contrary, quite intelligent. And VERY budget oriented. Just because they have not so far chosen to switch to Linux does not mean it isn't being considered. Very closely.
How many 500,000 person, global companies have made the desktop switch to Linux? How many have considered it, and put it on the shelf for later, when more/better tools are available?