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.'"
I want to see an unbiased proof that "MS IS SO MUCH CHEAPER" like they keep ranting about. If it actually proves they are, I want it HEAVILY documented. This could be the deciding factor to stop hating MS's apparent FUD tactics. They might really be more cost effective than Linux and other Open Source solutions...
;)
*cough* if you tack on the 699$ SCO tax *cough*
hrrm.
the original article about the 'UK test(ing) open source waters'.
Paticularly of interest is this: 'We can be sure that there will be lots of meetings going on inside Microsoft, because that is just what happened when the German city of Munich decided to use open source software in preference to Windows. The result was a secret offer of massive discounts.'
In Munich they offered discounts (although still failed), now this... If it isn't anti-competition I don't know what is.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
If you want to compete with Free Software, the only way you can truly compete is at the cost of use level. As far as operating systems and application suites go, the alternatives are all pretty much equal.
But once you take the fight to cost, the winners and losers get separated right quick. Mac, out. Linux, in. AIX, out. Windows, in. Solaris, way out. HPUX, out. Herd, it's almost there, any day now.
And so with the finalists Linux and Windows you have a neck and neck race. Linux wins in the licensing part, but Windows wins out in the cost of use. The total TCO is pretty much equal, so it's really a toss up at this point.
It may seem like a huge win for Microsoft if they can pull this TCO win off, but it's only one government department and the reality of the situation is that every office is different and has different needs. A company based on hacking and running high-powered servers needs Linux. A company based on being productive and interfacing with customers and customer data needs Windows.
So you can't judge the fitness of an OS on TCO alone, especially as TCO is variable among application domains.
Since this audit is being paid by Microsoft and being done in conjunction with Ernst & Young, you know for sure it will not be an unbiased audit (which goes against auditor independence).
Personally, I'm not holding my breath on a fair and independent audit.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
They don't have time for that! They're too busy writing Yet Another Tiki/BitTorrent client.
Personally, I'm trying to get people to think about open source and am in the process of putting together a CD presentation pack of OpenOffice for MPs.
An audit is most commonly meant to be just about verification. Eg an external audit of a company is meant to verify for the shareholders that the financial accounts present a 'True and Fair View etc.' I used to work in public sector audit for a competitor of Ernst & Young & I remember that there used to be things called 'Value for Money Audits' but these were really just disguised ways for audit departments to start doing higher-value consulting work. It's possible I suppose that Ernst & Young may come up with an objective answer, but I wouldn't count on it. I'd feel alot more comfortable if Microsoft had hired the Audit Commission (who could in turn have hired Ernst & Young) to carry this out. This is one 'audit' that I'd like to see audited.
Does anybody remember when MS audited several school districts in the Oregon/Washington area? Well, they weren't the auditor, some other company was. As I recall, the districts refused to comply with MS's push to move to its latest license, so the audit happened and the schools were (essentially) ordered by MS to either switch to the new license or be charged millions for license violations.
The districts instead, as I recall, switched to Linux.
What if this audit has a true goal of finding license violations?
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Newham is not the only (or even the biggest!) Council involved in the UK's trials. Even *if* this report can be *manipulated* to make Microsofts solutions *appear* cheaper, they have many, many more headaches ahead of them.
There are a *lot* of behind-the-scenes developments in Open Source deployment in the Public Sector in the UK. They *will* be hitting the news in due course. When they do, Newham will be the *least* of Microsofts problems.
Everyone stay calm...
Do you not think this could be due to your own lack of experience setting up Linux systems? Personally I (and the vast majority of support staff I have ever spoken to) find that Windows 2k boxes are far more likely to break down. This is also backed up by the vast majority of research which points to Linux being a much more stable OS. I think the reason Linux is not the dominant OS in large companies at the moment is not down to marketing or technology but down to consultants who can't be bothered to sit down and learn a new system and would rather just slap an extra few hundred thousand dollars onto their fee for "software costs" rather than investigate switching to Linux.
Computer Weekly reported that Microsoft refused to discount its pricing for Newham beyond its usual government discount. Microsoft was multiply stung when its deep-discount offer to Munich was rebuffed, making the press coverage sensationally embarrassing and giving every government body in the world the idea that it should bargain hard because Microsoft would compete on price against open source.
Microsoft evidently decided, What good is having a monopoly without enjoying monopoly rents? The Newham audit allows Microsoft's handpicked shills to report that "TCO" is lower if Newham's desktops continue to use what the vast majority already uses. Even if Microsoft loses the Newham sale, the audit report will be ammunition against open source in other government agencies, and it will defend Microsoft's profit margin.
As a UK council IT person trying to push Linux into here...i can say its a hard deal. Local councils get a very favourable deal from Microsoft and cause they've been there for a long time its not gonna change soon.
Change takes a long time in local councils and its going be a VERY long time before we go to Linux servers, never mind linux desktops.
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
Then there's Linux/BSD/QNX + GNU. All of which have Wintel clobbered for ease of maintenance (including stability and security) and at least tied for ease of use.
More interestingly, cities like Turku and Munich got large discounts for even mentioning that they were considering investigating Linux. The mention that Microsoft cannot give discounts anymore implies that they've run out of money to do so. Shrinking revenues as well as accumulated fines and penalties could easily account for this, even when cancelled products and services are acconuted for.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I get paid lots more than the guys (yes, 3 of them) in the Windows team.
However. I look after 110 systems while they look after around 15. My 110 systems are centrally managed, highly available, load balanced providing massive computing power to the engineers in the department, while the windows boxes are barely highly available and have no credible way of distributing processing.
The engineers use a thin client (X11) to access the Unix systems and no longer have a desktop Unix workstation, meaning changes for all users can be done in seconds the windows guys put a PC on every desktop meaning changes for everyone take hours, days, weeks and require a whole separate team of 4 people (yes over and above the server guys) *just* for the desktop support.
Tell me again why Unix/Linux is more expensive?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
The correct quote, for the situation, would be "Today the world, tomorrow Newham". Which has a certain je ne sais quois, even if it turns out to be a j'espois que je ne savrai jamais...
Is Newham some kind of poster-boy location for Microsoft?
According to the Register story cited in the slashdot article above, Newham's more of a poster-boy location for properly audited financially responsible public sector IT in the UK. Hence the interest in what they find, as they have a reputation for actually doing this sort of exercise properly.
We'll get a reasonably trustworthy temperature reading on hell when Cap Gemini Ernst & Young complete the audit and provide some figures.
Whichever way the result goes at least it'll give us some real objective figures to compare rather than the assumptions from both sides which are about all we have to go on at the moment.
tomV
eEurope 2005 hits hard by not only requiring a secure infrastructure by 2005 (automatically ruling out the current line of MS tools), but also by ensure that there is competition and interoperability. The latter, interoperability, requires use of open standards, some thing which Microsoft could do but has consistently chosen to corrupt or pervert. See its treatment of HTTP, LDAP or Kerberos for three of many examples. In the former, MS is the subject of numerous anti-trust, anti-competition and anti-freemarket cases.
Of course on a less serious note, the UK could get out of this one by secedng from the EU and joining the U.S. That woud have the side benefit of Tony Bliar becoming a natural born U.S. citizen and thus eligable to replace Bush.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I know nothing about Newham specifically, but the perception in many parts of the UK are that many local councils are not well run.
You know, back in the day, the council (i.e. the people who have the political authority and are elected, as opposed to the people employed by the council to empty bins, etc) were all unpaid volunteers, doing their bit for the good of the community (and their own prestige, of course, but there's nothing wrong with that). They tended to be "pillars of the community" for example local small businessmen, like the town butcher, the baker etc, and before joining the council they'd run their family business for at least couple of decades so they knew the ins and outs of getting stuff done.
These days, being a councillor is a job, complete with salary and benefits. The kind of person who does it is very different: now most councillors are career politicians without any experience whatsoever of the "real world". The old-style councillors saw local government as a means to an end, and their job as to provide a stable, pleasant environment for people to go about their lives and their business. The present kind see local government as an end in and of itself, and the local residents as a mere source of tax to fund the grand ambitions of the councillors - and if it goes wrong, just jack the taxes up.
The quickest way to get local government back on track would be a wholesale cull of everyone on a salary.
Also, and I mean no disrepect to anyone in local government IT in the UK, but it's not well paid compared to the private sector - there are plenty of PHBs I guess
You can't look at salary in isolation, you have to look at the complete package. Government workers enjoy near-absolute job security and lavish taxpayer-funded pensions on retirement. Private sector workers are better paid, sure, but are far more likely to be laid off, and their retirement funds are invested in the market increasing their risk.
I am setting up a two way, 64-bit server system to test several things and to create a cost comparison between Linux and MS.
:
:
:
I know what I want on the hardware side, it should cost me about $()2000. From this point onwards, we could to the following, this is a draft I am working on, and which should be expanded.
The only thing I am still missing is a relatively cheap broadband connection, which I can use to demonstrate things on remote systems, bootable by a Knoppix CD-ROM.
Here are my thoughts.
Project : Linux 64-bit server
Purpose of the project
A 64-bit, AMD Opteron based server will be built as a fairly performant system for usage in a small to medium business or workgroup environment. Several tasks will be handed to the server
- Database server, using 64 bit optimised postgreSQL
- Intranet server, using 64 bit optimised Apache and PHP, if possible
- File server, using 64 bit optimised Samba, if possible
- Application server, using 64 bit optimised XFree86 and OpenOffice.org
The project consists of several tasks, which in the end should result in a cost comparison between a Linux and a Windows system which should be able to deliver the same processing power.
The first task is looking for benchmarks to measure the system parameters
- CPU utilisation
- Memory utilisation
- Mass storage speed under load
- Network utilisation under load
- CPU load
- Response time when more processes are added
The main purpose of these measurements is to extrapolate the number of users that can be supported by this one system, doing several different tasks or using the system for more or less the same task.
The second part is to extrapolate based upon these numbers of users, the corresponding cost of equivalent Microsoft software, being based upon purchasing cost of operating systems, CAL's and application software. In addition to this, the cost of anti-virus software should be taken into account for MS based systems.
After that the maintenance of the system comes in the cost factor. This maintenance is separated into several parts
- Patching the system against security problems (scheduled downtime)
- Upgrading software based on a three or four year life cycle (scheduled downtime)
- Unscheduled downtimes : software and/or hardware failures : what do these cost ?
This is not easy. This needs the discipline of someone who is accustomed to filling in a log book. This means that a log book is necessary, preferably a paper one, or one on another system,, which is very strictly backed up and for which there are off-site backups.
Another factor is deciding when the system is end of life. The system must be purchased, but the life cycle of it mandates the yearly costs. The longer the lifecycle, the lower the costs.
At the other side of the cost spectrum is the question, what income factors does the system bring ? In what way does the system amplify the productivity of the people who use it ? This is inherently bound to the business process. What value someone is in the organisation can only be answered by looking at what losses/gains the company would make if that certain person is not there in the organisation.
Another way to look at this, is to compute the factor real work/overhead for someone. However, this is not really fair on a person by person basis, because some people are in the organisation to do overhead jobs, for someone who does the real work. Thus, in this case the whole group should be taken into account.
Still another way to look at the gains of automating an office, is to look at what it would cost to do the same task using mechanical means (paper, pencil, typewriter, internal/external mail, paper archival, retrieval and processing).
There are tasks which can be enhanced by generic software, and there are tasks that must be done according to strict business rules, which means that someone must spent time and resources to build this software. Once it is up and running, however, further usage is almost free. However, some time maintaining the software must be taken into account.
At issue here is TCO, and unfortunately, TCO isn't limited to simply how much it costs to use, train, deploy, and support an application. There are other problems that need to be addressed; from internal customization of applications to patch management and OS updates.
Let us look at MS-Office as an example. While Open Office affords us the ability to be about 90% compatible (I have personally seen issues with conversion from/to MS .doc format), it's the other 10% that drives TCO through the ceiling. This is inflated by the use of Macros and VBA code within documents, spreadsheets and databases (BTW--I have yet to see an adequate Open Sourch replacement for Access. If anyone does know of any, please feel free to correct me.) and this use of Macros/VBA Code is where the real problem lies.
I know that we should *not* be using VBA code, but many users do--especially Excel Superusers; and this problem exacerbates the Open Source -vs- Microsoft Debate. This isn't limited to internal users, either. Many, many vendors and external users compound the issue beyond any hope of rational solution.
TCO is also exacerbated by the land of the 'instant MCSE' ( I relate those to the US Navy 'Pushbutton Petty Officers'.). Like the Pushbutton PO, they lack the experience needed to think in terms of both how to do things the right way (not necessarily a Microsoft 'Best Practice) and the secure way. This type of thinking only comes with a lot of experience in IT, and you don't get that in 9 months of night classes and some testing software to get you through the tests.
Security training to M$ admins is also an afterthought--although it is improving--and is a real sore-spot. With Unix/Linux, you have to know networking and security, but with Microsoft, you don't really need to know it. A recent editorial in MCP magazine proposed a Board-Certification for Network Engineers. You would start with the MSCE..then you would take a hands on test (like the CCIE) and follow that up with an oral examination by a board of your peers. This is designed after the Certification processes many other professions use, from Nuclear Engineers, to Doctors. I would love to see this become common practice--for all forms of Network Engineer, from Microsoft to Linux. Even Sun, HP and IBM could adopt it. Or, switching gears, make it independent of any vendor, but use a vendors own 'Network Engineer' level of certification as a basic starting point.
Microsoft is not the enemy here, the real enemy is apathy. Apathy by the Board of Directors, the CEO/COO, CIO/CFO, the Admins, the End Users, and by programmers who develop the applications. Even using an Open Source or Unix solution is still NOT the Holy Grail. Patches for Unix OS's and associated software are still required, and they still *might* break your application and thus must be tested. The sad thing is that many organizations, regardless of their solution choice, do not take the time to be aware of proper Patch Management techniques. They don't know about or are too cheap to invest in a "Production Test Environment"; where you model your Production Environment and test patches prior to deployment. Most often these monstrosities require at least their own managers, with cross-level support throughout the organization--from Operations to IT. However, in large organizations, this can be a full-time job for an entire team; because if they're not testing the latest vendor patch, they're testing developed applications, and this all adds to TCO.
While a Unix/Unix-like solution may be the lowest TCO for one company, for another it may well be a Microsoft solution, or a Novell solution, or some other solution we haven't seen yet. One thing for certain--as long as people are in the mix, the TCO will never be completely free.
Robert Heinlein said it best TANSTAAFL or There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the c
Would anyone else feel highly insulted by having an outside company audit their business without an invitation? That would be enough for me to shut the door in faces.
Matt Lambert and I were, until recently, elected members of the same Council, one that was contolled jointly by Matt's party (Liberal Democrats) and the independents (of which I was one). Despite some of you thinking that all MS people are the devil's spawn, he is a really nice guy.
I had the unenviable responsability of overhauling the Council's IT structure and of introducing e-government. Although i was able to ensure that the contracts for document management, financial and GIS systems included guarantees that the suppliers would support their software on Linux desktops, I totally failed to get Matt's party to support my requests for the resources to run trials of OpenOffice on Windows and of a Linux Desktop.
Matt Lambert took absolutely no part in these discussions but I was supprised to be accused by a Councillor from his party, in a public session, of wanting an open source trial because "I hated Microsoft". I definitely don't hate Microsoft.
It was partly because of my experience that i set up the Open Council site to push the case for Open Source in local government. Microsoft's willingness to pay for this audit only goes to reinforce my assertion that local government is a critical area in the campaign to popularise Open Source and deserves more attention and support from the open source movement.
Knowing the way that local government works, my worry with this Newham situation is that it may just be a ploy to get cheap software from MS and that, in exchange for a big discount, the Council will agree that Open Source is too expensive. The results of this audit need to be closely scruitinised.
Paul
www.opencouncil.org
Open
Note that the only people not getting paid in open source are the techies. The developers and to a lesser degree the more technical support staff are conned into doing charity work to pay for the Porsches of the non-geeks. All profits go to the non-technical people almost in directly inverse proportion to their tech skills. At least in the commercial world, somebody besides the PHBs gets a cut.
You may or may not have been trolling, but you certainly don't have a clue what you're talking about. Companies like RedHat are not the only ones profitting from Open Source development labor. In fact, they aren't even a significant percent. The real people making money on Open Source development are the consultant-developers who go out and meet real needs by adding to or customizing existing Free Software. I am one of said people making a living this way, so I can speak with some authority on this matter. Open Source is an opportunity for developers to take home a far larger piece of the software income pie than if they worked for a traditional proprietary software shop. I have no marketing, sales, management, accounting, and legal departments to add to my overhead. When I write software and use it in a solution for clients, I am the one getting all the profit. Can I write all the needed software myself? Of course not. But fortunately, there are other consultant-developers like myself who do their part. Together we are the development team, even though we do not work within the same walls. GPL is our social contract that we will all contribute back the work we do, for if we do not, none of us can survive (or at least not as easily). And, incidentally, I provide notably cheaper solutions for my customers as well. So everybody benefits.
Proprietary software is dying business model.