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

This is what we all want.

[bl1st3r]

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* ;)

Re:This is what we all want.

[Deusy]

I want to see an unbiased proof

That's what we all want to see.

The problem is that there is really nobody unbiased to do this type of analisys.

You have pro-Microsoft (including themselves), Free Software zealots, and normal people.

Obviously, pro-Microsoft peeps will always interpret and flip data to make it look like it's by far the best option.

Obviously, Free Software zealots will favour Free Software although their reports tend to be more realistic due to the fact there usually isn't "the collective" ensuring that it has to be ridiculously favourable.

Then there's everday, normal peeps. They quite simply don't care. Microsoft software, for all it's problems, gets the job done and is familiar. Moving to Free Software may solve many problems, but the move itself will be months (or even years) of hassle and the new software initially unfamiliar. It may be cheaper but, hell, so is cycling into work.

Before you can get decent reports you need interested people who are genuinely impartial. How many of them are there in the IT world?

Anyway, that's my ANALisys of the situation.

Re:This is what we all want.

[FatherOfONe]

Ok, here is my beef.

Microsoft must make money to pay for marketing, sales, developers, accountants, lawyers and support. This cost isn't insignificant. Free software is... well free. Now if you consider that you need internal I.T. people for either solution how can Microsoft or any software maker compete.

Yes I know that a vendor can "add value" by making things easier, thus needing fewer I.T. people but aren't we talking about governement workers here. In the U.S. most of these people are the most basic of users. One or two tasks is all they do. Heck most of our people here use dumb terminals.

Lastly I would argue that even if Microsoft buys this ONE government off, it cost them significant time and resources, that only hurts them in the long run. This appears to give government agencies a choice. So Microsoft looses it Monopoly. That forces them to have to lower their prices. Either way they loose. So in the long run they have less dollars to combat FREE software. This makes it harder and harder to buy off other people.

So in short I guess I am saying. It is hard to compete with free.

Anyone selling expensive browsers now days?
Anyone selling expensive web servers now days?

Soon...
Anyone selling expensive office suites?
Anyone selling expensive NOSes?

Possibly later...
Anyone selling expensive databases?

Re:This is what we all want.

[drooling-dog]

Microsoft is going to cite (and probably exaggerate) the costs of re-training employees who are already familiar with their own software, and likely they'll also make fat assumptions about how much software has to be rewritten to replace arcane features that aren't duplicated in open-source solutions. Some of these points will be valid, but then they are points that will always favor the existing regime and if we weight them too heavily no change would ever take place.

They will also leave out long-term costs that arise from their market dominance and their ability to control their customers. As we all know, you don't pay just once for MS products; you pay again and again and again, just as frequently as Microsoft decides you should. If not for the open-source alternatives, things would be considerably worse for all of the MS shops out there, so they should at least be grateful that the alternative exists, whether they might consider making the leap or not.

It's a little beyond me why anyone on principle would prefer closed to open source software. Even if you'll never look at (or understand) the code yourself, others certainly will. This in itself guarantees that the software will continue to serve - and not manipulate - its users. It is a Good Thing to know verifiably that the software you are using is not really serving another master or out-right screwing you behind the scenes. Governments and corporations should seriously consider open-source solutions on this point alone.

The Microsoft-vs-Linux debate is only partly about short-term costs. Maybe the bigger issue is whether you feel more comfortable in a regime of centralized or distributed power. The MS partisans aren't merely reluctant to learn new tricks, as some have said here. They are also greatly disturbed by a world with no central, monolithic, and hopefully benevolent authority that they can (wisely or foolishly) trust without question. Most of the FUD we see comes precisely from that dark, scary place.

Follow the money.

[secondsun]

If I am paying someone money to make me look good, they damn well better make me look good.

If M$ is paying a metric assload for them to look good they are going to look fscking fabulous.

Newham?

[KillerLoop]

So Microsoft pays up for the audit and they got to choose the place the audit takes place.

Is Newham some kind of poster-boy location for Microsoft? I mean hey, hell would freeze over if this "audit" shows anything than a clear advantage in costeffectivness for Windows.

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.

Here's

[Pingular]

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.

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.

The only way to win, really

[Dancin_Santa]

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.

Re:The only way to win, really

[Anne Thwacks]

If you want to compete with Free Software, the only way you can truly compete is at the cost of use level.

If you really want to compete, you have to explain how a closed file format that changes every 18 months is a good thing. That will take some serious explaining, or serious bribing. Particularly in government.

Re:The only way to win, really

[malsdavis]

Why is the cost of use less for windows?

I study at a university in the UK where they have a lab full of about 600 Linux desktop PCs, in a lab down the hall there are about 100 Windows XP pc's.

Being quite friednly with the support staff I have on a couple of occasions asked them whether they prefer Linux or Windows and they ALL say that the 100 Windows PC's take up about 80% of their time and the 600 Linux comps only about 10% of there time (the other 10% is persumably spent doing what IT support staff do best ...sitting about whinging about dumb newbies).

From personal experience I have never once had a single small prob with any of the Linux computers ...wish I could say the same about my WinXP computer at home which just 3 days ago suddenly decided logging in was a minimum 20 minute operation!

This isn't a news piece...

[canfirman]

...it's a PR piece. The whole article puts a "Microsoft is better" slant on the whole issue of Microsoft vs. Linux. Also interesting to note who the author is..."Matt Lambert is director of government affairs at Microsoft"

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.

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.

Price was not negotiable

[PizzaFace]

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.

Re:Price was not negotiable

[timeOday]

Know why Ford doesn't offer 70% discounts to people considering a Chevy? Because they CAN'T. Their profit margin isn't that inflated in the first place. The main problem with monopolies is that they can charge whatever they want and people have to pay. No competitive business has 70% profit margins, like MS does.

They're spinning this for Joe Suit, not Slashdot

[dunstan]

What's going on here does matter.

Local councils in Great Britain are not IT innovators. They are deeply conservative (small C, sadly) bodies whose IT directors are terrified of appearing on television or in the press with projects which have failed. Hell, some of them only recently stopped doing their word processing on green screens attached to their mainframes.

They have now arrived at the "nobody got sacked for buying Microsoft" mindset, and the elected members who they serve are as nervy about IT projects as their IT staff. They are happy to tip loads of local taxpayers' money into Microsoft because that's what everybody else is doing, and there's no safe alternative. This, well, fear, uncertainty and doubt guides IT procurement in Microsoft's favour. But for cash strapped councils, the attraction of leaving Microsoft behind is great - the money saved could go directly into local services (most likely some pet project which would be a waste of money, but I digress).

So the emerging possibility of basing council desktop IT around free software causes mixed feelings in these people - if they save lots of money they will be heroes, but if the project crashes and burns they will be zeroes. They have done a good job so far of scaring IT directors into thinking that they are taking a big risk going with non MS software: now they are addressing the other part of the equation, and demonstrating that there won't be a big saving.

It doesn't matter that the study is rigged and being paid for by MS: "The Newham Study" will be often quoted as a "professional" study by CGEY, who are a tier 1 player in local council outsourcing in GB.

The question is, can the study be neutered? Sadly this is unlikely as it will be printed on glossy paper and widely circulated. The best outcome is that there will be another study showing a different outcome, so the viewpoint on cost savings will be "mixed".

This is precisely why MadHatter is so significant: Sun are trying to still show major cost savings (though not as much as using a generic free software stack), while reducing or eliminating the possibility of the project crashing and burning.

Dunstan

Who cares about TCO?

[jotaeleemeese]

People that support and promote FLOSS very often loose sifgt of the most important characteristic of this kind of software: transparency, accountability (specially when software is GPLed) and avoiding to be locked in by software providers.

I would not care about paying twice as much for an open solution if after a few years my institution is sued for millions because a watchdog comes and finds impossible to audit our internal procedures.

Or after some years come a propietary company and changes the licensing schemes (because that is what is in their interest, not mine) and I am forced to pay extra money that was not in my budget.

Or waht about the propietary software company decides that my version of X program is not going to be supported enymore and all my main processes are using that software perfectly fine and I would prefer to rather no upgrade or migrate to the latest and shiniest?

MS will emphasize the TCO when they can put forwad cases in which it would appear MS stuff is cheaper. Well, at this stage of the game TCO is a red herring, since there are many other considerations far more important, specially for democratically elected bodies, I would glance at such study and ingonre it it completely since closed source software companies are to be considered only as a very last desperate resource.

Sorry, It's my fault.

[Moderation abuser]

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?

What matters to the public

[linuxbikr]

The public does not care what their government runs on. What they do care about, as others have said, is being able to access data that is important to them freely.

Despite being a Linux user, I have mellowed over the past few years and I really don't care what an organization uses. If it gets the job done, so be it. My issue (both at home and in the corporate world) is being able to share data. As long as I can read the document, data file, database, spreadsheet, etc, using the tools of my choice and provide that data to my peers in the formats they need it in, what one uses to make use of the data is largely irrelevant. It isn't a Microsoft vs. Linux debate.

In government, the public has the right be able to access their data freely and fairly. Corporations can impose limits on the tools used to access its data (i.e. everyone must use IE on the Intranet). In the public domain, cost is secondary to interoperability. You cannot dictate to the public that every MUST use IE or they are out of luck in dealing with the government. They must support all, IMHO, at least 95% of the populace. That means supporting IE, Mozilla, Linux, Opera and Mac users, to name a few. And it isn't hard, kids. Just don't use browser specific extensions.

Use commonly available formats. Use HTML, PDF, XML. Offer documents in MS Word, StarOffice/OpenOffice (SXW), ASCII text, RTF and XML formats, to name a few. Offer data in CSV, text and XML formats. Do that and the public can choose their favorite tools, be it Windows, UNIX or Linux. Governments have a civic duty to do this if they want to offer their data electronically to the public-at-large.

Microsoft's true crime is the control of file formats. Break that one monopoly and their Windows desktop monopoly will start to come apart. Education eventually triumphs over ignorance. That one ruling in the antitrust suit could've changed the world. Break their lock on the data and the rest of their business won't be able to compete except on merit.

I use OpenOffice on Windows daily for document production despite the fact I have Office installed. Just personal preference. Only my immediate co-workers know the documents aren't being produced by Office. The rest of the business couldn't care less. As long as the data is transparent and sharable, the world doesn't care how it gets produced and prcessed. That has always been the key in the enterprise and should be priority one for any e-government initiative. Run whatever you want, just make sure anyone and everyone can make use of it with the tools of their choice.