Telstra Used Linux To Get Microsoft Discounts

awful writes "Last year Slashdot ran a story about Australia's largest telco moving to Linux desktops. Turns out it was all a way to get some tasty discounts from Microsoft. The Australian is reporting that Telstra just signed a four-year deal with MS for $AU15-20 million, for 40,000 users. No figures yet on how much of a discount Telstra got, but MS might want to rethink handing back all its cash to investors if this is how they're going to do business from now on ..."

Comments

Maybe he _is_ from Oz?

[leonbrooks]

Way to use the free market to your advantage.

They did this. They used it to their advantage by subverting it.

It's taken... how many years for Western Australia's largest ISP to be able to roll out its own DSLAMs into a few core exchanges? Up to that point, the only real in-the-exchange competition here was a few pathetic efforts from giants like Optus, plus literally a handful of exchanges with RequestDSL DSLAMs in them.