Israeli Gov't Begins Testing Mandrake Linux

DJStealth writes "According to this article on Arutz 7/Israel National News, the Israeli Gov't is beginning to move away from Microsoft and is testing localized versions of Mandrake Linux in the Treasury dept. as the contract with MS expires this month. This all despite a recent defense ministry contact with MS."

Comments

Re:Good move.

[CreatorOfSmallTruths]

The fact that Israel is in Asia doesn't mean a
thing...

Israel has all major companies R&D centers: IBM, Intel, M$.

Israelies are contributing to linux distributions, open source projects etc. (why else would a birocratic office like the treasury be interested in linux?? someone there thought it was a good idea to pitch the offer)

Israelies invented ICQ, PHP, the UAV, A couple of smart bombs and some other "low tech" toys you might have heared of (currently they have a missile vs. missile resembling the patriot, a lazer-targeting system designed to target low orbit missiles)

Don't refer to Israel as third world country. Please.

Re:Yes, but why?

[orlord]

http://www.billparish.com/presslist.html

Microsoft's mistake

[Sire Enaique]

The Israeli decision probably stems from Microsoft's faux pas last year when they announced that Office XP for MAc would not be localized in Hebrew.

See _Microsoft's Mac Hebrew snub prompts Israeli AntiTrust complaint_ from the register:
www.theregister.com/content/archive/296 92.html

Even if they apparently subsequently reversed their decision the damage was done.

An important factor here is Israel has a buoyant IT industry and Microsoft's initial decision highlighted the danger of relying too heavily on one single software supplier.

Re:Is this a growing trend in business?

[be-fan]

Interesting you should mention Thailand. I was actually born in Bangkok (my parents were living there at the time), and have been back many times since. You're absolutely right about the cost of living. At first, I was embarrassed about giving the bellboy a $0.50 tip, until I realized how cheap everything there was. The quality of life there certainly isn't as high as it is here, for the professional class (which anybody contracted to an American company would be a part of) in Bangkok its not that much different from parts of urban Europe. European standards of living might seem very low to Americans (most households only have a single TV!) but its an entirely livable lifestyle.

Now, as for how the United States can compete with the price of living in other countries, the simple fact is that it doesn't need to. If the cost of living in Thailand is much lower than the US, than jobs that can be exported are exported. So the US does lose hi-tech jobs. On the other hand, that creates a demand for other types of jobs in the US. For example, you'll need new people to handle the communications between the company and teams located in other countries. Its a basic economic principle that the number of jobs lost because of such events is less than the number of jobs gained. Also, remember that Thailand and a number of other asian countries have very quickly growing economies. As an economy grows, the cost of living rises. Eventually, the economy will hit a state where it is no longer profitable to export jobs to the country, because the cost of living is so high. This happened, for example, with Hong Kong, where the per-capita GDP has approached 80% of that of the United States.

Consider a real-world example (that I ripped from an economics text :) The United States has an international agreement to protect textile jobs in the United States. So far, it has saved about 79,000 textile jobs. However, adhering to that agreement costs the country about $16 billion dollars a year in lost revenue in other industries. That means for each job saved, it is costing the US economy $202,000 a year. Also consider NAFTA. When NAFTA was created, there were numerous complaints that it would destroy the US economy, because jobs would be sucked over to Mexico. While many jobs were indeed sucked over to Mexico, many new jobs were created here for Americans.