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U.S. Army Warns Microsoft To Back Off

Posted by simoniker on from the or-else dept.

declan writes "My CNET News colleague Ina Fried has written an interesting article today about how the U.S. Army has told Microsoft to stop sending free CD-ROMs of Office 2003 to government employees. In what's effectively a cease and desist order, the Army said: 'Your offer of free software places our employees and soldiers in jeopardy of unknowingly committing a violation of the ethics rules and regulations to which they have taken an oath to uphold.' Whoops! Perhaps this is Microsoft's latest way to fight free software at the Pentagon. Remember that just 8 months ago, the Army paid $471 million for Microsoft licenses."

13 of 635 comments (clear)

  1. Yep, it's happening in the Navy, too.... by andy55 · · Score: 5, Insightful


    Yep... I'm in the navy and this new item hit the streets last week (I considered submitting it as a story--oh well). We had guys and civilian contractors in our building getting free copies of office. My hate for ms reached a new high--talking about caught red-handed trying to plant seeds that will secure them--argh.

    Separately, as a member of the military and despiser of the pitiful quality of ms products, I've always been strongly concerned about the military's use of ms products. The military, like many parts of the government, subcontract-out most tech work and implementation. The contractors, with sealed pay rates and support plans, have no problem deploying huge ms flagships at given branch or sub branch of the military (and then forwarding all the licensing bill to uncle sam). In other words, the root concern is that senior military folks that make the money decisions, need to get the job done but don't have a technical background (ie, to them, linux, microsoft, a server, source code, hacking, and TCP/IP are all one and the same). The contractors drum up offers, the military takes one, and--wham--the US gov't is now shelling out to ms in huge numbers and there's no one who looks at and says, 'is this the best way we could be doing it?'

    If you've been around the government, you know what I mean about how scary the contractors are in terms of quality and knowledge when it comes to industrial back-end technologies. I'm on shore tour now, but when I was on my sub, you'd see these people doing a software install by blindly reading out of a SPAWAR procedure. I'd ask them stuff as they went along to gain knowledge and tips, but I usually got back a sheepish "I'm not sure". Grr...

    Andy

    --
    G-Force music visualization
    1. Re:Yep, it's happening in the Navy, too.... by andy55 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I wouldn't mind getting the stuff for free!

      Seriously, what the hell is in ms office that the previous version didn't have that's of huge value? What more "essential" things can be added to a word processor? At the end of the day, bells an whistles don't make content. Call me when ms puts out a version of Office that makes content.

      Andy

      --
      G-Force music visualization
    2. Re:Yep, it's happening in the Navy, too.... by WorldRimWalker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What's the great new feature? The same critical feature that every recent version of Office has provided - compatibility with the latest version of Office.

    3. Re:Yep, it's happening in the Navy, too.... by Karn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hang on a second.. If they have to be taught how to burn a CD in Windows, how is that any different than Linux?

      How is that any better than, say, a custom US Air Force version of Linux that has a shortcut on the desktop to a CD burning application or script?

      If you were arguing that Linux wouldn't work on the home desktop, where the users have no sysadmin to fix things, or no tech support person to direct questions to, you would be right that Linux would be too much. However, business and government have both of those resources (usually) and are not an issue. Using Linux isn't a whole lot different from Windows when a competent admin has set up the desktop to meet the needs of the intended audience.

      --


      Why do I keep typing pythong?
    4. Re:Yep, it's happening in the Navy, too.... by Geoffreyerffoeg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If the US Armed Forces are ever defeated (as in we tried hard but they thoroughly pwned us, not as in we pulled out or didn't have the soldiers) it will not be for technological inferiority. It will not be for a strategic failure. The US has spent many, many resources ensuring this is unlikely to happen. It will be for something unexpected and completely unrelated to actual battle.

      If any of the Armed Forces are locked into one platform (be it Microsoft or Linux or...) it will open a wide hole for any cracker employed by the opposing governments. The homogeneity will ensure that something that takes one computer will take them all.

    5. Re:Yep, it's happening in the Navy, too.... by rat7307 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, my university has a similar licensing agreement with Microsoft. We get unlimited copies of all Windows versions, all Office versions, and I think a good deal more (haven't needed them, so haven't checked). Of course, we upgraded to that license because Microsoft threatened to sick the BSA on us if they didn't. We were pissed off at the time, but it's actually been a good deal for us in the long run.

      There is something seriously disturbing about your post. Plese re-read it and explain how it is a good deal..

      I read it as 'we were forced to upgrade our software at a co$t or the vendor will sick the lawyers onto us.. but it's a good thing... really... really it is..'

      That to me sums up how they manipulate the customer to get their way...

      It must stop.

      --
      Burma?
  2. Re:I got one! by g4sy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Totally agree.. it's all just a conspiracy to get Outlook into as many computers as possible. They know that the main battle is being fought over the groupware. Whoever controls the groupware of an organization will have a big influence on the rest of the software installed.

    For anyone who doesn't beleive me, just try migrating Exchange server / Outlook to anything else, and you'll realize the depth of the insidiousness of microsoft mailing out copies of Outlook. They are miring IT department with otherwise good intentions.

    --
    somewhere, on a Big Red Sign:
    if(color==blue){speed--;}
  3. Re:$20 Limit... by Realistic_Dragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Um. $500 retail is crap.

    Fair is fair, use the same value they do when calculating their "$90000000000 billion lost to software piracy!" figure.

    --
    Beep beep.
  4. Re:$20 Limit... by Vo0k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If it something is sent to me for free, it is um, well, free!

    Here, take this gold bar, absolutely for free, it's a gift. You pay nothing, it costs nothing! And now, about that contract of ours...

    --
    Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
  5. Also insidious... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A while back when I was an IT monkey, I seem to remember Office2000 would install Outlook even if you specified not to, in the custom install. And don't get me started on trying to uninstall internet explorer...

    This is why I turned to *nux and never looked back.

  6. Are they writing off the cost? by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For quite a while Microsoft (and probably plenty of other software companies) has been donating software to schools and taking a tax write-off for the full retail cost. Not only is the first one free but it's apparently a tax benefit for MS.

  7. What about schools? by gcore · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I bet a school could really save some money by getting those "free as in beer" copies of Office.

    But hey, why should schools save money?

  8. Ummm.. yeah. by The+Tyro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That doesn't square at all with my experience... former Air Force talking here.

    Most pilots are bright folks, they just stumble when confronted with an area where they have no background or training (like anyone). If you're starting from scratch, Linux is just as intuitive as anything manufactured by microsoft.

    Incidently, the Air Force has plenty of tech-saavy people, often in the form of reservists. I've had systems guys in deployed locations who were company-grade officers... but senior software engineers at major corporations, often using linux on-the-job. Many of them hated our reliance on MS products, and looked for ways to use more-functional things every chance they got. Good grief... our NT servers in Saudi Arabia had to be rebooted monthly or they'd simply cease to function (don't even get me started on service packs).

    MS is not the way... it is a way, and that's all you can say. Pilots are more than swift enough to use linux if you gave them a little training.

    --
    Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.