Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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.
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.
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.
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.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?