Israel Suspends MS Office Purchases For Now

case_igl writes "The Seattle Times is reporting 'that in an apparent showdown over price, Israel's government has suspended purchases of Microsoft Office software and is encouraging the development of an open-source alternative.' The Finance Ministry has cooperated with Sun Microsystems and IBM in designing the Hebrew-language version of OpenOffice software, a freely distributed open-source alternative to Microsoft Office. The spokeswoman said the government was unhappy with Microsoft's refusal to sell individual programs from its standard Office package, which includes e-mail, spreadsheet and word-processing applications. Microsoft representatives in Israel did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment." The Associated Press article is carried on many other sites as well.

Comments

not?

[smsp]

I guess they don't welcome their old ms-overlord then...

Good!

[nycsubway]

More power to them! Microsoft Word's default Hebrew fonts are non-existent, and the alternative Hebrew fonts aren't very good. Nor are any of the office products very good at inputing right-to-left text. I hope the improvements to openoffice will make their way to other countries.

Re:Good!

[Samhain138]

Even in the newest version of Word, hebrew still is problematic.
For example, when you try to add something in english in the middle of your hebrew line;
or when adding a phone number with a dash (+972-3-1234567) in the middle.
And they want money for that, sheesh...

Re:Good!

[TheLoneCabbage]

Not to mention that OOffice comes out of the "box" with full language support. Last I checked MSOffice need seperate copies to handle each language. Not even taking Hebrew as a special issue, you have to consider that Israel is very diverse linguisticly. In addition to Hebrew you have English (the official language of business in Israel), Russian (20% of the population), Arabic (another 20%), Tai, Farsi (Irainian Jews), Bedoiun (not kidding), Ethiopian, Hindi, and more.

Your typical Israeli office has native speakers of at least 5-6 languages.

The ability to nativize a desktop/office suite on the fly is tremendously important here.

Re:Good!

[Jon_E]

that's precisely the problem .. only a few fonts .. for years Microsoft has been stripping down the Unicode set for many languages and effectively restricting what can be developed within their core O/S and "productivity" products .. Hence a fresh start with OpenSource allows *many* more developers and native speakers within a country develop their own fonts and contribute them back in to lower level applications.

You gotta..

[Anonymous Coward]

You gotta watch them jews - they'll beat you down to the lowest price every time!
</sarcasm>

Disclaimer: I am jewish.

Good example!

[hak hak]

I'd like to see more countries do this. Hopefully it'll help convince businesses and people that Microsoft isn't the only choice.

Re:Good example!

[GeckoFood]

I'd like to see more countries do this. Hopefully it'll help convince businesses and people that Microsoft isn't the only choice.

What M$ will end up doing is waffling on the price down the road somewhere and try to schmooze Israel into coming back to them. It then becomes a matter of whether or not Israel is disenchanted enough with M$ to tell them to go away or if they'll recant and take the new deal.

In an effort to keep India from going open source at one point, M$ decided that offering software at a steep break would work to keep India in the shackles. IIRC, India went open source anyway after much debate.

Will the scenario play out the same way? Dunno. Either way, it'll be interesting to see what happens next. I am willing to bet that M$ will cave on the price to avoid losing business, with not too much concern over the revenue. It could be too little, too late, but they have little to lose by trying that. And since they have done that before, I expect history to repeat itself.

In the end, I hope Israel sticks to their plan and turns from M$ Office. And perhaps this is the new trend?

Re:Good example!

[u-235-sentinel]

I've been watching this happen over and over again. Country after country have been walking away from Microsoft over the last few years and it seems to be accelerating.

$300 for XP Pro and $500+ for Office is shear lunacy. Before you spend ANY money on hardware, you already have spent more than the hardware is worth just in a simple OS and office product. Not worth it. Not even close. When I asked for a refund for XP Pro on my laptop I was told I would receive a check for $10. Is that what I paid when purchasing the laptop? Of course when I asked for 10 copies of XP Pro at the same price they were a little miffed at me. Bummer dude.

If I'm keeping score properly, there are about 30 countries in which the Government has "allowed" opensource alternatives. Most have required justification for non-opensource software and why opensource can't be used for the work. Microsoft isn't totally out of the picture. They have a seriously reduced role which I'm encouraging everywhere I can.

Re:Good example!

[pirhana]

>> What M$ will end up doing is waffling on the price down the road somewhere and try to schmooze Israel into coming back to them.

Even if that happens also, microsoft will be the loser in the long term. The significance of these issues are actually the price pressure and discount pressure it exerts on Microsoft. When Microsoft "schmooze Israel in to coming back" with steep discounts and other incentives, others are bound to demand the same from Microsoft. And this is what going to create problems for Microsoft. In the long run, its going to have a devastating effect on their mind boggling bank balance. At that time alternatives like Free softwares can expect a far fairer competition from Microsoft.

Re:Good example!

[swillden]

What M$ will end up doing is waffling on the price down the road somewhere and try to schmooze Israel into coming back to them. It then becomes a matter of whether or not Israel is disenchanted enough with M$ to tell them to go away or if they'll recant and take the new deal.

Yep, but as MS learned with Munich and, as you pointed out, India, unless MS plays their cards just right, they could lose anyway. Too many people are too pissed off at the way they've been jerked around in the past, so many are willing to suffer a little pain and even higher costs to break free.

Microsoft's high-handed tactics of the last decade are coming back to haunt it. Not in a really significant way, just yet. A few thousand copies of Office here and a few thousand copies of Windows there aren't going to cause immediate suffering for a company of Microsoft's size and health, but as more organizations make the switch it will become easier and easier for others to make the switch.

The goal of F/OSS developers isn't to combat Microsoft, but it's becoming increasingly clear that what will motivate the entry of F/OSS into the mainstream is widespread dissatisfaction with Microsoft's tactics, rather than anything related to the relative quality of the software, or even price.

Re:Good example!

[Lord_Dweomer]

"I've been watching this happen over and over again. Country after country have been walking away from Microsoft over the last few years and it seems to be accelerating."

As have I. I feel like the website for Open Office should have a world map that indicates which countries have already ousted M$ and have switched to Open alternatives. If such a map already exists, someone please provide a link!

Hrmm

[acehole]

Hebrew isnt the easiest language to work with on computers seeing it is read from right to left, which would make for interesting programming.

Re:Hrmm

[Adambomb]

Honestly, as far as the computer is concerned, what difference if characters being displayed are displayed to be read left to right or right to left?

now...CODING from right to left would make for some fun revamping of parsers and parser generators, but nothing that would be all THAT complicated.

Re:Hrmm

[phatsharpie]

Considering that Chinese (and many Asian languages) is traditionally written from top to bottom and left to right, it is probably in any software vendor's best interest to design their software allow text input in multiple directions. After all, Asia is a huge market.

Didn't Microsoft really embarrassed themselves awhile back when they demonstrated Windows/Office using traditional Chinese characters in China (which uses simplified characters)? I think that demonstrates that Microsoft needs to be much more detail oriented when localizing their software (or at least their presentations).

-B

Re:Hrmm

[MrsPReDiToR]

Israel isnt the only country with a difficult language that isnt encouraging the use of MS office. Think the notoriously hard to learn languages and the fact that China, Japan and Korea are using Linux?http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200312/29/ eng20031229_131444.shtml
Maybe just maybe Microsoft are going to find it increasingly hard to sell to countries whose language doesnt not follow similar rules to english (american) grammar. It could become a strong point above many others for open source products. We need language to communicate effectively. If our OS does not provide a correct form of our language surely we will use one who does. Especially if its free!

The article was very skimpy on details

[suman28]

This is definitely a move that will help push Linux further into everyday use. I wonder how soon Microsoft/Isreal will 'compromise' to help make the deal?

Re:The article was very skimpy on details

[the argonaut]

am I the only one here who would honestly love to see microsoft improve their software and licensing rather than just failing and being consumed by GNU/Linux/FOSS?

Yes.

Powerpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

What OOo needs most is more support from powerpoint. We are forced to buy a copy of Office for every computer because we use powerpoint for so much. Features such as hyperlinks to other presentations and exit effects are show stoppers for openoffice.org.

Re:Powerpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

What version of OpenOffice are you using? In my version (1.1), you can insert a hyperlink by clicking Insert, Hyperlink on the menubar. Transistions and effects are handled by the Slideshow menu.

Re:Powerpoint

[ink]

Sad, isn't it?

Presentation software is the worst category of software out there, IMHO. Most of the time, it destroys public speaking skills and tortures those who would like to learn something. I've seen effective uses of Powerpoint, but 95% of the time it seems that the "speaker" simply reads thier slides to the audience. This includes teachers and professors as well. They may as well just print out their "slides", pass them out, and send everyone on their way to do more with their time (like sleep).

That "exit effects" are a showstopper just reinforces my opinion.

Re:Powerpoint

[Fred IV]

Use the free powerpoint viewer for employees that aren't writing the presentations. Buying office is a waste, especially if you're only using it to view ppt files.

Better, stop using powerpoint (or open office) and start presenting in HTML instead...no worries about compatibility issues, hyperlink as much as you want, easy bulleted and numbered lists, etc.

FIV

away with MS

[cinnamon colbert]

What if 1 out of 100 /.ers got invovled with their local school/ school system technology group... I don't know what our school system (town of ~ 90,000 people, dont know fraction in school) pays for software, but we must have close to a thousand seats, even at academic prices, thats a lot..not to mention the educational value of having High school students forced to learn something about software

Interesting, but not hard

[mekkab]

Nah, coding is easy.

What's interesting is if this is just a bargaining chit being used by israel to make MSFT drop thier price, Just like Thailand did!

Use the promotional code "LINUX" and get thousands off your Microsoft installation costs!

Re:Interesting, but not hard

[kfg]

Thailand is a poor country where Windows piracy is rampant and Linux is a valid alternative just on the basis of cost and licensing issues alone.

MS is also tailoring a version of Windows for Thailand alone and making noises about being willing to this for other Asian markets as well, which are huge.

Isreal is a rich developed country where cost and licensing issues are the same as for any other developed nation. To be considered but not necessarily overiding issues.

However, the market is small and MS is refusing to tailor a product for them even under threat of being declared an illegal monopoly. The required tailoring (supporting the local language for God's sake)has, in this case, rather marked cultural and religious overtones. It's a serious issue embeded in local law.

No, I can't see this as a bargaining chip for lower prices.

It's a direct assualt on MS culture, and frankly I think it's about time someone stood up and said, "Look, we're a frickin' country. It is our culture and we make the laws. You are just a business and as subject to those laws as anyone else. Deal, or get the fuck out and we'll keep our own money here. Thank you very much."

KFG

KFG

Israel and Iran

[einhverfr]

Can't agree on much (Israeli security concerns, real or imagined, are behind much of the Bush Administration's hard-line approach to Iran).

But at least they both agree that Free/Open Source Software is good! Maybe this is an opertunity for peace down the road!

Laughing? Don't. Think of it this way-- what better way to gain additional respect for someone you think probably just wants to annihiliate or repress your people than workign with them on development of open source software?

I think it'll help

[truthsearch]

I think it can help quite a lot. The Israeli government has a lot of interaction with other governments and businesses. They have huge military contracts locally and abroad. They also contribute much government money to scientific research, so it may spread there as well. Since their government has so much interaction with so many different organizations I think it will help spread the word.

Re:I think it'll help

[Tim C]

I think it will help spread the word

Spreading Word is the last thing it'll do...

Time will tell...

[Osrin]

Once we see what the Israeli government deploy on their desktops we will know if this is for real, or just a crude negotiation technique.

Wondering What The Outcome Will Be

[chia_monkey]

We know there will be a lot of posts about "yeah! Stick it to the Man!" and "Microsoft sucks! Serves them right!" going on. But let's think a bit deeper into this. I like the actual reasons Israel is saying "no, we're not going to live under your tyrannical rule. We will search out other options". That has been a major argument over the years..."everyone uses Office, so do we". Well that's not the case anymore. Microsoft is still trying to strongarm its customers by any means neccessary. It started with the OS, then to the nutty licensing, and now by their refusal to split up Office (which if you recall used to be a collection of software you could buy individually). Good for Israel. Now...what next? Will other large companies go "hm...well it worked for them. Let's try it too" or will they just go "they're crazy" and continue to be lemmings like most of humanity is?

what they REALLY said

[theMerovingian]

The spokeswoman said the government was unhappy with Microsoft's refusal to sell individual programs from its standard Office package, which includes e-mail, spreadsheet and word-processing applications.

Off the record, she refered to Bill Gates as a shlemil, and said they weren't going to take any more of his schmutz. They are tired of schlepping his insecure software around, paying far too much of their hard-earned mezuma for his khazeray.

Re:Hrmm (Display! Not code...)

[splutty]

I think what people fail to see in this argument, is that it really doesn't matter how the characters are oriented. It's all a matter of how they're displayed.

If you have:
AABBBCCCDDD in your memory, since that's the order in which the characters have been typed, the only thing you have to do is make your display routines in such a way that you write them 'on screen' from right to left.

For all the code involved in line checking, block operations, search and replace, etc, etc, it really doesn't matter how it looks on the screen, only how it's actually internally stored.

So the basic design of these Microsoft programs was faulty in that you can't define an orientation for the data you've used as input.

Mad.

David vs Goliath?

[Baron_Yam]

It seems to me that one of the reasons MS has always been able to create inconvienient packages from groups of software, and then sell at very high prices, is that they OWN most of the market. In other words, they're so big that you and I can't possibly expect to demand a concession.

Of course, now that countries are starting to realize that they're big enough to push back, we have more of a Goliath vs Goliath thing going on, and maybe MS will start to be more flexible in the way it offers its software. Maybe they'll start to consider adding a language pack when they stand to lose sales to an entire nation.

It'd be nice to be able, for instance, to buy Word and Excel without PowerPoint, Access, or FrontPage. (It'd be even nicer if Frontpage and everyone who contributed to it's creation were cast into Hell, but that's another story!)

Don't read too much into this

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

As an Israeli computer technician, I see what everyone uses here. 95% (maybe more) windows. almost 100% office. now Israel's government is in a major budget crunch, and is cutting corners everywhere. Other corners cut: Handicapped support (not enough to live on now), public health benefits and so on.
as for the claims that MS office doesn't support hebrew, it depends which version. Every copy you can find in Israel will be "Hebrew Enabled" which provides FULL Hebrew support, including great help files and even the interface.

Peace , definitely Good!

[einhverfr]

More power to them! Microsoft Word's default Hebrew fonts are non-existent, and the alternative Hebrew fonts aren't very good. Nor are any of the office products very good at inputing right-to-left text. I hope the improvements to openoffice will make their way to other countries.

I would assume that the main benefits would be of most use to (in order):

Other Semitic languages such as Arabic, Syriac, and Ethiopian

Other right-left languages, such as Farsi.

Noticing a pattern here... Ironically enough, these improvements are likely to help develop the software for those that Israel considers to be their enemies (the Arab world and Persia, being Iran and parts of Iraq, Turkey, and Afghanistan).

This is not a bad thing. In the end, Israeli engineers may work side-by-side Iranian engineers on open source projects, and these engineers may develop personal respect for eachother.

The Israeli political system is paralized when it comes to peace, IMO, due to the low margin (2%) that parties need in order to qualify for the Knesset. This is why the current gov't is so dependent on the radical right-wing parties such as the National Religious Party (which many Israelis regard as fascist). Yet they are not stupid, and this unilaterial suggestion on their part has been a long time coming (if you read the Israeli press, you should have seen it at least a year ago, if not more).

The ONLY hope of peace is for enough people on all sides of the conflict to get to know eachother and develop personal respect. They don't have to respect eachothers' governments. Hell, as an American, I don't have much respect for MY government! But in the end, personal respect is the way towards peace. Collaboration is one way to do this. FOSS is one venue for collaboration.

Re:Peace , definitely Good!

[diersing]

I think you over estimate the power of OSS.

In the height of the cold war, lets say you met and befriended a Russian. Lets say a thousand people did, lets say a million.... what what % of the population do these personal relationships make governments change policy? My guess is, it doesn't happen. When ideologies not only vary, but conflict to the degree Israel and it's neighbors do, personal relationships will have very little effect unless we're talking about the nation's leaders becoming buddies, which at the very least will facilitate more discussions. Of course those discussions will anger some sect will continue to launch terrorist suicide attacks which will of course, be retaliated for and the vicious cycle continues.

The problems in the middle east are complex, maybe too complex to solve today. My hope is the next generation of middle eastern will have more understanding and tolerance for one another, but then again, that generation will have lost fathers and brothers to the violence and will have thier own bones to pick.

Re:Peace , definitely Good!

[pirhana]

>> Noticing a pattern here... Ironically enough, these improvements are likely to help develop the software for those that Israel considers to be their enemies (the Arab world and Persia, being Iran and parts of Iraq, Turkey, and Afghanistan).

Actually you make a very valid point. One of the best (and most underrated) benefit of Free software is the collaborative nature and the community built around it. Look at what happened with KDE recently . Some Iranians made use of what is basically a European/German project. I dont know of many things in which Germans and Iranians cooprate in a grass root level. Certainly open source is not a panacea for peace or anything like that, but the cooperation and association in the field of open source development without borders surely will help people bring closer.

Re:Peace , definitely Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think your expectations are too high.

OSS probably won't bring peace on earth by christmas of next year. It could very well bring some people together from different and conflicing cultures that would have not have otherwise. It is a step forward, and good enough for me. It will take many steps in the right direction, and this may be one of them.

Re:Peace , definitely Good!

[iabervon]

And, in fact, the latest peace effort is by Israeli and Palestinian civilians to entirely skip their government bodies and negotiate with each other as a group of people harmed by conflict. These are people who affect corporate interests, government committees, nearby countries, foreign funding, and so forth. Working on FOSS together is very much in this spirit. I look forward to the day when Arafat tells Palestinians that the PLO's administrative functions depend on Israeli tech support and development, and it would be a major setback for any of them to get killed. Random violence is much more difficult when you have to be careful.

Re:Peace , definitely Good!

[Tony-A]

It's one of many. And yes, a very few do make a difference.

Extreme cold war.
You don't know any Russians.
You don't know anyone who knows any Russians.
You don't know anyone who knows anyone who knows any Russians.
You've barely heard of vodka.
Tchaiskovsky is ok because he comes from Czarist Russia.

A little interaction between a few people makes for a lot of change in the degree of seperation. American Rock Music in Moscow and Russian ballet in the USA or Western Europe do a lot to bridge the gaps. It doesn't solve the problems, but it does make them a lot less unsolvable.

Re:Peace , definitely Good!

[iminplaya]

"This is not a bad thing. In the end, Israeli engineers may work side-by-side Iranian engineers on open source projects, and these engineers may develop personal respect for eachother."

I suspect that the engineers already respect each other. It's the politcians and other wackos that want to maintain the perpetual(?) war.

Re:Peace , definitely Good!

[diersing]

I agree with you, cultural exchange can lead to a foundation of understanding - which can lead to compromise. But the parent I was commenting on, leads the reader to think a couple techs working on an OSS project together is the trigger pin to a happier and more harmonious middle east, which I disagree with.

Although I appreciate your point of view, I don't think it applies to the parties in Israel. Primarily because the dispute in the Middle East evolves around land and religion, two things people (for the most part) aren't willing to compromise on. Religion, because it's the basis for their identity and what separates them from the rest of the corrupt world. Land, because (in the case of Israel) it's what defines it as a nation.

I don't think cultural exchange with Russia would have led me, as American, to relinquish Alaska if the USSR was staking a claim to it.

On matters of religion, I defer to zealots; they care far more about then me. I don't go to church, I'm not a member of a particular faith but I believe in God, I believe in Heaven. I also believe in tolerance and understanding. Do what you want to do in the name of your God, I'm not going to care until I start seeing terrorism in the name of God. I've read several of the books the worlds religions considered central and I've not seen any that condone mass murder as a means to anything. These are ancient faiths that believe in an eye or an eye, this belief lends itself to a never ending string of killings. At some point, someone on one of the sides is going to have to let one slide, call things even and start talking about what is really at stake.... Land. Land that possesses religious locations both want dearly. They want them to continue their religions, their teachings and their culture. What makes them who they are is at stake and unless they can learn to co-exist, its going to come down to a serious military conflict where all they hold dear will be destroyed, but one side will win and stability will come.

Antisemitism is never welcomed

[shis-ka-bob]

Well I guess it was inevitable that someone would resort to name calling :-( At least this troll can' t be accused of being pro-open source. It is important that Jewish and Israeli remain separate, if related, adjectives. Israel's complaints are purely over price - the State of Israel does have better things to do with its money than pay a monopoly tax to a foreign corporation. In that they are not alone, the world is full of countries that are less wealthy than those of us lucky enough to be born in the West.

While I would not like to overstate this, an open source project could be an small opportunity to bring Jewish and Muslim developers together. They share a common goal of wanting software that can handle text that reads right to left. Anything, even something as small as an open source project, that can help bring people together in the Middle East has to be a good thing. While open source is not a magic elixir for world problems, working together is always a useful step.

MS Is Dying

[Orien]

Now if I was Microsoft right now, I would have to be asking myself this question:

Is the money that I make forcing people to buy things that they don't need (for example, an entire office license if all they need is Outlook) worth the money that I lose when people start flocking to free alternatives when they don't like I'm offering?

Microsoft (or any company for that matter) stands on very shaky ground when the market starts going in a different direction and they refuse to be flexible. This is just like the RIAA and file sharing. If the RIAA in the mid 90's when CD burners were about to hit the market had dropped the price of CD's, and offered a legitimate electronic distribution method, things like Napster would not have been such a big hit. They created unrest in the market by not being flexible and giving people what they want to buy, for the price they want. The same thing is now happening to MS. What does MS office have that OpenOffice doesn't? Nothing that mattered to Israel. So when they were forced to pay for something they didn't want or need, they looked for an alternative and found it.

Unless MS shapes up this will continue to happen and happen more rapidly. Mac OS, Linux, and all other *NIX will only gain market share as they become the viable alternative.

Just compare some of the licensing of Mac OS to MS. The new, fully loaded version of OSX? ~$130. The new fully loaded version of Windows XP? ~$200. The new fully loaded version of OSX Server? ~$1000 for unlimited users. The new fully loaded Windows server 2003? ~$4000 with 25 users. And that is not to mention Linux which is fully loaded for free!

They can't sustain this for long before something breaks.

Microsoft employees and shareholders react

[The I Shing]

In the Golan Heights today, Microsoft employees and shareholders threw rocks and bottles at Isreali soldiers, who fired back with rubber-coated 8x10 glossy photos of Linus Torvalds, injuring one Microsoft employee in the left upper arm. In response to the violence, the Isreali government ordered pizzas delivered and watched reruns of South Park and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Lets ask the guys that got an F

[shis-ka-bob]

Yes, but they did get an F for computer security from the House of Representatives. Getting security advice from the class dunce doesn't strike me as a great idea. If the DOD, another F recipient, doesn't like OpenBSD, perhaps we should have a second look at it too.

Mo' choice == mo' betta

[The Infamous Grimace]

I'm an admitted Apple addict (fan-boy, whatever...), so...

I installed OO.o for OS X the other day, and poked around a bit. Gotta admit, it isn't anywhere near as easy to use outa the box as either Office or AppleWorks, at least for me (got both installed). That said, I think it has a lot of potential, and I'm anxious to see what the Aqua-native version will bring. And the folks over at OO.o admit that it's not for the faint-of-heart, and recommend it only for geek-y types at this time.

I'd like to see Apple release an update to AppleWorks, for both Mac and Windows. I also think Apple should support Linux as well, and expect that they eventually will. The more competion that MS has, the better off we all are. It's not like MS can't make good software - Office v.X and Flight Simulator come to mind as examples of good products.

Anyways, hopefully MS will continue with their recent trend of seeking outside input (as with the questionaire sent to Linux users.

(tig)

Open Office is good enough

[karuna]

Recently I did some freelance translation work for Microsoft. Actually some brochures highlighting the benefits of using licenced software versus pirated sw. The files I was sent were in rtf format and I did the job successfully using Open Office 1.1 in Linux.

If the documents from Microsoft (although I don't really know if they were from Microsoft because my direct client was not Microsoft) can be used on Open Office then why not in the Israel government, provided that the language support is there. My experience is that government clerks are not the brightest users anyway and they tend to use a limited range of features they have been tought. With some planning Open Office can be more than adequate for all real tasks in the government.
--

And the Bam earthquake puts it all in perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel is helping to develop software that could improve the usability of computers in Farsi (Iran).

Iran refuses Israeli humanitarian aid for earthquake victims.

Islamofascist mad mullahs would rather their people die than get help from Jews.

And you claim it's the Israeli political system that's paralyzed by peace because of the low margin for Knesset representation.

Market size for Hebrew office?

[swb]

How big is the market for a Hebrew-enabled office? It can't be that big outside of a few Jewish schools, some of the Orthodox community in the US, and Israel itself.

It just sounds like a pricing game to me -- MS wanting (needing?) to sell the whole package in Hebrew to make any money keeping up their translation and the Israeli government objecting to the provisions of the seller.

It wouldn't surprise me if MS just decided to drop Hebrew altogether; it's a limited growth market, and the number of people who speak English in addition to Hebrew has to be huge, and with the demands of document portability, many would likely switch to the English version anyway vs. some other version which supports Hebrew.

I know, I know, it's another terrible example of American corporations exterminating a local culture in the name of profits, but that's just a political interpretation of economic reality.

Re:Market size for Hebrew office?

[Kickasso]

MS gladly supports even smaller language communities, such as Estonian.

Re:Market size for Hebrew office?

[swb]

MS translations probably have less to do with size of audience than audience size and language complexity. Estonian is a simpler language to support, since it follows the same input methods and text layouts as other latin alphabet languages.

Re:Market size for Hebrew office?

[Circuit Breaker]

The hard work is right-to-left support, for which there is, potentially, a huge market - Arabic speakers. If you have Arabic working, Hebrew is much simpler (replace the font, disable context-sensitive-glyphs, and you're done).

Furthermore, Israel exports a lot of "bleeding edge" technology to the rest of the world. If Israelis don't use Microsoft, it will have noticable effects, especially with early adopters which are often also trend setters.

Re:Market size for Hebrew office?

[yuvtob]

Think about it like this:

The first country that had a Microsoft branch outside the US, and one that used Microsoft products for years, is shifting to alternatives. This usually gets people to think - maybe I can look at alterntives as well.
Also, most people aren't aware of this, but there are virtually no Macs in Israel, so there's no competition there...


Comic Book Guy: Worst. Comment. Ever.

Re:"Peace" process, definitely Good ?

[drac]

(1) Are you claiming that the murders were part of a Palestinian conspiracy? Because usually, the people promising peace are not the people doing the murdering. Is that the case here? "The Palestinians" are no more a united, homogenous group than are "The Israeli Jews".

(2) Why were the Hebron settlers murdered, and were their murderers brought to justice by any common, civilised sense of the term? What often happens is that in the understandable thirst for retribution, the actual reasons for the violence are trivialised, and the social order is suspended or abandoned- which only helps bring about more violence.

computer geeks aren't exactly violent

[wrinkledshirt]

This is not a bad thing. In the end, Israeli engineers may work side-by-side Iranian engineers on open source projects, and these engineers may develop personal respect for eachother. ... But in the end, personal respect is the way towards peace. Collaboration is one way to do this.

I wish I could go along with that, but it seems like a little bit of wishful thinking. Geekdom is the ultimate meritocracy -- politics is not. In computer science, you can tell a good solution from a bad solution -- it's all right there in front of you, and people who can come up with good solutions will be respected for those solutions regardless of race, religion, etc. In politics, what determines a good solution or a bad solution is the power of the person carrying out that solution and their ability to sway the public into thinking it was the right way to go all along.

Re:And the Bam earthquake puts it all in perspecti

[dizzyduck]

"Iran has made it clear that aid from everywhere would be accepted, except from its sworn enemy, Israel" right at the bottom of the article.

Confused

[zakezuke]

The spokeswoman said the government was unhappy with Microsoft's refusal to sell individual programs from its standard Office package, which includes e-mail, spreadsheet and word-processing application

Perhaps the middle-eastern market is diffrent then the american one... but near as I'm aware you can still by Outlook, Word, and Excel seperatly. However, it makes little sence to as if you need two MS applications, you might as well buy Office. At least the american price is something like $200 for excel, $200 for word, and like $100 for outlook. The office professional edition is like $500 from buy.com, not sure about the SB edition, the upgrade is about $300 from buy.com.

Now... whether or not you can buy one copy of Office and install word on one machine, excel on another, and outlook on another is a little bit unclear to me. Back in 2000 I did actually ask microsoft about this, they... being tech support said "I don't know, sounds reasonable to me, but I don't know".

Re:"Peace" process, definitely Good ?

[RevMike]

This was one of the false arguments laid by the Oslo people: let us reach for a temporary solution, the two people will get to know each other, and surely will respect each other so much that war will not be possible.

The failure of the peace process in Palestine goes further than that. I don't believe there will ever be peace until the Palestinian people achieve some level of economic prosperity. When a people have something tangible to lose, they naturally shy away from violence. A prosperous Palestinian economy would isolate the terrorists to the most extreme ideologues.

That being said, I don't know what steps Israel might take to foster such a situation (I believe that massive public works projects do more to hurt than to help), and I certainly categorize Arafat as a poverty pimp, who has more to gain by keeping his people in poverty.

The best start that I can recommend would be the creation of programs that would teach the advanced farming techniques so successful in Israel to the Paelstinians.

Re:"Peace" process, definitely Good ?

[Malcontent]

There will never be peace in the middle east. Why?

1) There can only be peace between equals. Israel is much stronger then palestine. Between unequals there can only be surrender. The palestenians are unwilling to surrender.

2) God is telling the israelis that a certain plot of land belongs to them. Once God tells you this all else is moot. There can be no peace as long as god is telling you to build houses on somebody elses property.

3) Neither party wants peace. That ugly fact really is the most important one.

What strikes me most is how this whole issue is so tainted with religion. When one country invades another one eventually they make the subjugated people citizens. This is what china did in tibet, what the Americans did to the indians, what the russians did all over eastern europe.

it's been decades since Israel took over the "disputed terrotories" and yet it has made no move to make any of those peole citizens? Why not? Because Isreal is a jewsish state and introducing millions of muslims into it's population as first class citizens would break a covenant with God. It's not a racial thing, it's OK to have some muslim citizens just not a majority or even a politically significant minority.

IMO Israel should annex the lands it won fair and sqare in a war. It should then do what every other nation in history has done when they won terrotory in war and that is to make them full fledges citizens. I bet that a vast majority of palestenians would love to be first class citizens of a modern democracy.

Bundling

[PhYrE-K]

Bundling is just another word for profit maximizing. Microsoft makes more money by bundling, even just slightly. The newspaper example is best used. A wants just the sports section and is willing to pay 30c for it. B just wants entertainment & the front section and wants to pay 40c for it. If each of them buy it, they may 70c total, but if they can charge 50c for both people, they make a dollar.

The point is that Microsoft is trying to milk everyone for more than they're worth. Israel isn't doing anything wrong beyond saying "why are we choosing Microsoft if their support is sub-par. Why shouldn't we find a better prices solution that is completely compatible". Microsoft has to be competative (with free) or convince more lemmings to follow them off the cliff.

-M

Re:"Peace" process, definitely Good ?

[Kjella]

It is not the political system in israel which is responsible for the right's ascent, but a recognition that the peace process was nothing more than a national-scale con-job. The palestinians decieved israel, by promissing peace, while maintaining a constant, low intensity, level of murdering Israelly civilians.

The Oslo agreements and the resulting violence were nothing more than a result of the Israelly left's stupidity and blind-optimism whenever the word peace is involved, while confronted with a clever, hateful and murderous opponent (the PLO, later PA).

Yes, the Palestinians didn't manage to stop all the suicide bombers. But don't pretend that Isreal didn't use every shred of opportunity it got to strike back at the Palestinians as well, closing borders, isolating settlements, replenishing the jewish settlement, creating new ones.

There was no real desire for peace from the Israeli either, just peaceful assimilation. To reduce the Palestinians to a bunch of small reservations with no real power, much like what happened to the native indians in the US.

That failed, and failed miserably. Now they want to wall them in and isolate them by force. While it may keep them apart, it'll also stigmatize the entire situation more. What's next, all Palestinians allowed to move among the Israeli to wear a mark? Like the Jews under Hitler? Don't say it can't happen...

Kjella

Interesting spin from Seattle

[waferhead]

Only in Seattle, where MS is a good neighbor, would any "journalist" say this is "apparent showdown over pricing"

Someone has not been paying attention, perhaps willfully so, apparently.

It's over features that Israel offered to PAY for, and MS blew them off for years.

It's about lack of customer support, and MS arrogance... That OOffice just happens to be a 95+% replacement for Word (today), and happens to be Free in both senses of the word, is just a bonus.

Re:"Peace" process, definitely Good ?

[drac]

I note that you still have not addressed the question as to the reason for the massacre of the Israeli Jewish settlers in 1929.

While I disagree with the views and actions of Sharon and his ilk, I agree with you that it is blinkered to think that he sprang up out of nowhere, and that there are not normal human reasons for his rise to power; the same is true for the rise to power of similarly questionable leaders, factions, and patterns of behavior among the Palestinians.

It is a collective Palestinian behaviour.

The views and actions of Palestinians seem to range the normal gamut from saintly to criminal. You seem to wish to tar them all with the same brush; this does not seem logical or evidence-based. Such demonisation is the first step taken by those who wish to justify racism and genocide. Palestinian bombers doubtless think the same way about Israeli Jews.