Microsoft Audits UK Council To Prove Cost Effectiveness

A Masquerade writes "When Microsoft's market position was threatened by projects within the UK government evaluating open source solutions, it chose an interesting way to fight back. Computer Weekly has a piece by a Microsoft manager explaining they're paying for an external audit of the IT services for a specific UK local authority, Newham Council, to provide a cost justification for Windows and Office on the desktop, as opposed to an open source solution. The Register comments that 'if Microsoft succeeds in holding on to Newham, it will have knocked a considerable amount of wind out of the pilot schemes before they've even kicked off properly.'"

Comments

Re:This is what we all want.

[cscx]

Here you go.

Bit of background

[Anonymous Coward]

Some background to this:

This is about Linux on the desktop. Newham are (for example) already running their website (and intranet) on RedHat CCM (APLAWS) on Linux.

I believe Newham's IT Director is an OSS fan. Linux on the desktop across an organisation is still pretty radical; one of the main drivers is security. Newham have been sold the idea by the great Eddie Bleasdale (UK 30-year I.T. veteran and Linux evangelist) of Netproject, who have also sold it to South Yorkshire Police. Netproject is a 2 and a half man outfit taking on Microsoft and doing a lot of damage. M$ response to South Yorkshire was deep discounts.

So, unless M$ have an in with someone higher up than the I.T. director, it's not clear this audit will achieve its goals.

Disclaimer: I don't work for Newham or Netproject.

Re:The only way to win, really

[darkat]

Also if the fact that M$ software will be proven true by umbiased consultants, nevertheless Open source software should be preferred. The problem is the lock-in that the use of M$ software can lead to. Freedom has no price...

Council splerge

[Anonymous Coward]

My ex-boss is a council man, he's been pushing Halton for open source for years, the amount of money spent on licences for windows, office and the like is amazing, I'm suprised that people don't protest after all it is our tax it's comming from, to be fair windows it well established. but I feel that Linux is not that diferent, most people arn't bias as to what os they use, the click here does this is a little extra for them to learn but no more so than say a new version of windows would be. The most trouble councils are likly to face is the problem of unknown suport and technicaly availble people to set it up and fix it should anything go wrong.

But the attraction seems to be the open source bases, the way in which people can take control of thair systems managment, only techy people understand how but my ex boss sure understands what it means.

Re:Here's

[nordicfrost]

MS offering a discount in response to not being chosen is, in fact, a prime exame of competition. It is competition at work. Whether it is 'secret' or not is immaterial.

No. Competition would be if the playing field was dominated by many small companies adjusting their prices to find a common, sustainable price. If you are an actor with oh, say 90% of the market and lower your prices drastically when a competitor enters, it's called dumping. The fact that they did it in secret is probably due to the stricter competition rules in Germany.

Re:Newham?

[Builder]

Newham is actually quite an open-minded borough, well at least as far as their IT services team go. They have been quite instrumental in pioneering new IT technologies including Open Source solutions in the UK, and many other boroughs look to them for guidance.

Pity they're also the leaders in deployment of citizen surveilance solutions as well, and many other boroughs look to them for guidance on that too.

Re:Poor IT director

[Builder]

In this case, one of the chief ICT guys for Newham said Open Office was a no-brainer, not open source in general.

Re:Here's

[Daniel Phillips]

MS offering a discount in response to not being chosen is, in fact, a prime exame of competition. It is competition at work.

When profits in one market segment are used to subsidize sales in another it is called "predatory pricing" and is illegal, particularly when practiced by a monopoly.

Newham -- not a poster boy

[Half-pint HAL]

Newham hasn't been picked as an "easy win" for Microsoft: it's more of a "key win". Newham considers itself -- with fair justification -- as "a leader in local government ICT" (another Register article, new today). If Microsoft lose this one, other local councils may well see it as proof OSS is viable in place of MS' wares. For this reason, Microsoft are going to have to make sure the suits believe the hype....