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Microsoft Funded Study Cinches 10yr Deal
Genevish writes "According to an article in the Register, Microsoft and the Newham Council in London have signed an agreement making Microsoft the preferred vendor for the council, instead of the original hybrid MS / Open Source plan. The council was very careful in choosing Microsoft, having an independent study done and all.
The only problem is that the study was, you guessed it, not independent at all but funded by Microsoft. Their decision even had the journalists at the press conference laughing."
it's all about who gets the money, with an occasional intern thrown in.
12:50 - press return.
when munich goes through the paces for about a year or two. the TCO will no longer be theoretical for a large government body, but real.
i have no vested interest in getting linux or microsoft onto desktops or servers, but all i've seen is microsoft spreading propaganda and other FUD about linux and open source.
remind me again, how you save money going ms office instead of open office?
every government has corruption and greased palms, this is just another example.
"Even the reporters were laughing" - that's not such a rare amazing feat, y'know. Reporters in these events are rude and boisterous. It's like a locker room. This is like saying "Even the hyenas were laughing".
Bring in a competing vendor and make your current partner aware of this to get a better deal. All these "studies" are just a smokescreen.
Poor Microsoft. They've never really been exposed to competitve pressures before.
"Microsoft is very serious about addressing security concerns"
Just like everyone remember Microsoft about 2-3 years back saying they are now (then) becoming serious about security and it'll show very soon. Those 2-3 years have passed and what have changed? Not much.
^_^
Whether that's as far ahead as dumping Microsoft and going with open souce is an entirely different matter. It'll sure be interesting to revisit this in a few years time and compare and contrast Newham with Munich though...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I'd love to try to sell Novell/Mono solutions as well as MSFT/.NET solutions; but the sales staff gets so much more support from Microsoft in making their pitch, it'd be really really really hard to get anywhere going against them.
Is there such an organization (IBM, perhaps, though I have no experience with them) that can help provide such studies as the one described in this article to help Linux vendors? Such a supporting organization that could help smaller software companies provide such research for their customers would go a long way to leveling the playingfield for Open Source.
Bottom line, though, software vendors need to look out for their own bottom line, and the resources Microsoft provides in this regard are very helpful.
Come on !! It's a British local authority, the corruption of these people is only matched by their incompetance..
To get business with these poeple you only need to:
1. offer the biggest beano ( freebies )
2. offer the largest compensation plan ( bribes )
3. be related to a council official
They probably only suggested an open source plan to get MS to up the freebies.
- Jr
I can't understand why anyone would enter into a 10 year deal for anything software related. Things just change way too fast in this industry. 10 years ago Netscape and Lycos were dominating the net, Windows 3.1 was the latest and greatest os, and open source wasn't even on the radar. Who knows where we'll be 10 years from now.
> In another 5- 10 years, microsoft will be competitive with unix....
Jebus-h-christ-on-a-popsicle-stick, they've been making that claim for the last 5-10 years.
Where is the business sense? Very serious about addressing security concerns? You don't select a product to run your production apps based on someone being very serious. When it comes to security concerns, you select a product based on the product's track record with security.
CIOs unfortunately have no business sense, when it comes to evaluating when to use open vs. closed source.
The problem is that a purchasing process that (presumably) makes sense when you are buying widgets or consumables breaks down when applied to software. If there is no vendor to make a pitch for it, (or if the vendors that do exist aren't huge money vacuums, beacuse they sell expertise instead of binaries) then it doesn't get considered properly.
High level managers understand contracts, quantities, maintenance contracts. They don't understand software. But they make the decisions.
Someone posted in some other forum on this very issue that this is also great for another reason: It proves to everyone looking that Linux is a serious contended worth considering - why else would Microsoft see a need to fund an "independent" study AND massively drop their prices to prevent a move?
So see this as free marketing: Microsoft is telling the world that Linux is good enough for large government deployments.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If that's only £5m over the 10 year span, then whoopity freaking do. Then they probably only have a handful of file servers and maybe 300 workstations to support.
This smells like a "the sky is falling" bs hype story to me.
If it's £5m/year for 10 years, then it really is a big deal and I'd be very confused by the decision as well. (Well, not really. Graft graft graft)
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
As for security, how would a Windows box be hit by much of anything behind a decent firewall?
Then you can't let laptops on the network either, since something infected could then be behind the firewall broadcasting away.
It's a sad commentary on Slashdot's idiot population when they come onto a site owned by a company which makes its bread and butter pitching Linux and OSS solutions to get "news", then think it's really really funny that a Microsoft-funded study wound up deciding the direction of an IT project somewhere.
Dumbasses.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
The problem with TCO and Operating Systems is that your are not comparing Apples to Apples, I can easilly Justify that Windows is more expensive then Linux and I can Justify that Linux is more expensive then windows. All I have to do is adjust the implementation around. So if there is a 1000 person company w. 20 or 30 systems per branch then put 1 Administrator at each branch and install software on each PC with different software for every person. Then usually Windows will have lower TCO because the cost for administration will be less for windows vs. linux because a Windows administrator is a dime a dozen, and any problem with windows will get fixed quite quickly with the administrator who is already on salary. But if you take a master application server(s) and install all your application on the servers then have each person use a thin client or a low end pc configured as a thin client. And have 1 or 2 Administrators for the software and a couple of service companies that are in the areas of the branches to repair hardware (which should fail less often because you are not overusing the processor and harddrives), now in this case Linux is the winner here because most GUI applications are X based and and be displayed remotely over SSH and the application servers can be administrated by 1 or 2 people, W linux you dont get killed by license fees for every user allowing growth to be more affordable.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The Microsoft-funded analysts on the other hand found any use of non-Microsoft software would be both insecure and expensive. They even suggested IE as the browser of choice "because Microsoft is very serious about addressing security concerns". In a world where "Internet Explorer" and security are intrinsically oppositional terms, that is clearly villainous behavior.
Neither, Penn State uses in house developed solutions to manage the 130,000+ people here. Instead of throwing money a "solutions" that do not solve your problem, spend it on competent programmers that can solve it for you.
Generally nothing comerical scales to this size very well, and most vendors panic when they find out just how large we really are.
Finkployd
Reminds me of a poem reproduced here:
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy.
the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of
initiative (and creation).
There is one elemental truth,
the ignornance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans---
that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then Providence moves all.
All sorts of things occur to help one
that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issue from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner of incidents
and meetings and material assistance
which no one could have dreamed would come his or
her way.
Whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Begin it now.
- Goethe (1749-1832), German poet and dramatist.
I think converting to open source is like this poem, as your switching you develop tools to help you convert all your data as you go with increasing returns as your tools improve iteratively. Once your fully open-source then you can reap the benefits of network effects, the reason, I think, that major companies such as IBM and Sun have developed and implemented open-source strategies.
Shh.
* A generic company's IT staff probably (maybe?) is not competent enough to support adequately a company-wide Open Source initiative.
* Said staff is not going to support an Open Source intiative that will put them out of a job.
* Company's generally like having third-party support contracts. That means it's someone else's fault, and they can sue said someone if they f*** up. At most, a company can only fire an individual employee if they make a config change that destroys a database, say.
* What happens if an employee can't figure it out? One of these support contractors will either: not take a contract, or double their rates, if they're expected to come in, figure out what someone else hacked up, and solve that problem. This increases the overall cost because you just hired admins at 80g+ and helpdesk at 50g+, and then you have to pay out for a support contract anyway.
The sad truth is there are so many mediocre admins/contractors/etc that get by with a "good enough" attitude, that it doesn't surprise me if some companys decide Win32 is cheaper.
In the same breath, if a company does it right, trains their staff (or pays for their training), and has foresight enough to see through a project like an Open Source conversion, then they will come out on top, IMO. In addition, they will be much more nimble, technology-wise, because of their more advanced and competent IT staff.
This is, of course, all pure speculation and opinion on my part, but this is /. so this is no surprise.
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Microsoft is serious about addressing security concerns. Their preferred method of addressing security concerns is by announcing that they're really serious about security concerns, and that they'll address them, so you don't need to be concerned.
When they combine this with a few cosmetic changes in Windows, they have maintained an amazingly high success rate at making people less concerned about Windows security. As you can see from this article concerns about Windows security still seem to have a fairly low frequency among key decision makers. And this is, after all, their main concern about Windows security.
You also forgot MS' new strategy of lumping 2 or 4 or 40 security holes into one "vulnerability".
Some OSS vendors do this too, but not to the same extent.
I suppose it's wishful thinking that Microsoft could burn through their war chest by making these enormous discounts everytime a client makes noises about adopting OSS. But if 50% of their clients adopt this strategy (and why shouldn't they?), it could really impact the MS bottom line.. and maybe, if the deep discounts stop flowing, companies will seriously think about switching.
Quite, simply it's an upgrade strategy. Let's say yes, they did decide to implement everything using opensource technologies and custom defined opensource databases ect. The problem then arises to the cost of having these applications developed and stability. You can't just upgrade it like a commercial product you also don't have any legitimate backing. If you have ever worked in corporate environments the biggest concern is hardly licensing cost. It's quite simply implemenation, security, stability, and upgrade path. Additionally, corporate IT departments are more worried about implementing new projects and keeping the network running smoothly than a few thousand in licensing costs. With licensing you also get software support from the company that made the product. It's a huge issue when all of a sudden your application comes grinding to a halt. I agree that windows server side leaves much to be desired. However, on the client end windows is honestly light years ahead of linux. The applications are already in place and they are simple to implement and administer. The users all already know and understand windows that is just quite simply not the case for linux. Let's say that you have a corporation of 100 end users and that the time it takes for these 100 end users to adapt and adjust to this is 1 week. You have just lost 1 week in soft costs which is way more than the cost of having a system they already understand in place.
You are treating every little thing as something seperate. If you add up all the little things, it turns into one big thing. IE feature stagnation may be a little thing, reinstallation of Outlook Express or MS Messenger may be a little thing, changing your homepage to MSN or Microsoft.com may be a little thing, with holding documentation about interoperability may be a little thing, forcing per CPU cost for Windows and not per CPU shipped with Windows installed may be a little thing, introducing a version of Windows that only runs on MS DOS may be a little thing, preventing OEM's from placing certain applications on the desktop of preinstalls may be a little thing, some FUD may be a little thing, integrating IE and Explorer and forcing an update system that requires IE may only be a little thing.. I can go on and on if you'd like but those little things are now a TREND!!
Basically how it worked is that the study concluded that Linux cant do that neat thing where you flip the tablet screen around and the screen rotates because no-one could find/install the software for it. Then they thought about some of the servers/database type things but microsoft said they would give them 30% off if they didnt use any open source software. 5 million quid later and all the social workers are happily playing solitare on their new tablets and saying "yeah im sorry we cant really help you we dont have the budget."
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The original quote: "It takes a lot to raise a laugh at an IT press gig, but this news tickled the spot for the journalists at today's press conference in London."
The Slashdot version: "Their decision even had the journalists at the press conference laughing."
Not to pick nits, but if you read the original quote carefully, there is only the implication of laughing...from journalists or anyone else for that matter. The journalist's "spot was tickled". Which, aside from bordering on the pornographic, still doesn't indicate that ANYONE laughed.
Though Slashdot isn't exactly a newssource, it can still undermine its own credibility in general with sloppiness like this.
Did all of these employees go to training classes on MS Office?
Probably not.
So saying that switching to OOo always requires training is a bit of FUD.
Microsoft needs to spend less time addressing security concerns and more time addressing security.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
This seems to be the problem with lots of cash-strapped folks, not just governments. Why do poor folks kill themselves to buy fancy cars, or overly expensive designer clothes? Poor folks are under the misguided perception that "buying" stuff makes you successful. Clothes make the man. A fancy SUV parked in front of the house, shows you have the goods. Success will come to you if you just purchase enough trappings.
Look at all the bone-headed moves done by my own government in Puerto Rico. Buying laptops for all the public school teachers while paying them $13,000 a year. $40 million to MS for site licensing, MS's biggest customer in the Caribbean, yet if we were a US state, we'd rank considerably lower than Mississipi (like half). *shakes head* Buy stuff to be successful. Stupid.
I tell you, technology doesn't do shit, just like a hammer doesn't do shit. In the hands of a trained, educated carpenter though, they are a means to fabulous ends.
Open Source allows carpenters to freely train in their trade, exchange ideas, collaborate, and become masters of their profession, instead of glorified assemblers. Instead of assembling other people's mass producted widgets, you get to create wealth for your local culture, area, neighborhood whatever.
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
A more rational reply may be to say that the initial training is a one time cost to convert all a complany's forms. You have a limited number of people in large corporations generating forms, the rest just tab from block to block and once you train your current staff to use the new icon on the desktop all the new hires are either going to get trainging anyway or are hired because they already know it. You could likely even keep a license for your form makers and then convert all their MS Office files to whatever was needed.
Where MS does have an arguement is small business. Many small business owners cannot afford to hire a competent IT staff. It is about total value, you're right about that, but don't be so short term, look down the road, past that initial change over for a large corp, what's your cost analysis then?
you're all figments of my deranged imagination
* A generic company's IT staff probably (maybe?) is not competent enough to support adequately a company-wide Open Source initiative.
This argument leaves me always wondering, how many company have the IT staff really competent enough to manage their Windoze-based IT environment efficiently, and most importantly, more efficiently than OSS alternative.
Having worked as an Linux & Open Source entrepreneur, my experience tells me that there are lots of organizations whose IT infrastructure is on the verge of collapsing and cracking down because it's poorly managed. Poor management is usually the result of incompetent staff for Windoze sysadmin jobs. The-kid-next-door-who-knows-computers make good tech support, who will fix individual workstations, but when it comes to servers and complete IT environments, knowing how to (un)install programs and set up trivial stuff won't get you too far.
A lot of organizations' IT departments need great deal of training, no matter what the platform is.
So hundreds of OAPs can't aford to pay their council tax because it's so high they can't live if they do. Then a council pulls this bullshit?
/Me waits for this to get modded down by MS fanboy without a clue of the current problems with OAPs and council tax
I'm sorry but this is out of order. Microsoft is no longer just hurting the software market, it's helping old ladies freeze to death or become seriously ill.
If you're going to bullshit and scam someone go after the stupid, not the people who will have to pass this onto the old ladies who can't help but be in this situation..
I'm going to be writing to the council and to my local council and just point out how pissed off this makes me.
Guess we need a new title for Bill "I kill old ladies" Gates now huh..
I like muppets.
They're releasing Windows XP SP2. Perhaps you've heard of it?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Write to the OGC and /or your MP and state (in a sane, rational and well argued way) your reasons for disagreeing with Newhams decision. Newham is required not to obtain the lowest price but the best value which is not always the same thing.
You may feel like saying that anyone who signs a 10 year contract in as volatile a sector as IT is an arsehole and I would whole heartedly agree but there are many other reasons why this arrangement stinks, e.g. depriving the public sector of a valuable study that could provide real long term savings, providing an open standards based infrastructure that could be integrated with any future system specced by the EU etc. so go for it guys and girls, get creative!
I will be starting tonight and unless the brain death victim that signed on the line can prove otherwise it'll be harder to support these sort of actions in future contract negotiations.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
You can always blame Microsoft but the contracts you sign to do business with them allows them to abdicate all responsibility.
Read the EULA. You can't sue them. If it makes your computer burst into flame instead of word processing you *still* can't sue them. If you can prove that they *intentionally* coded it that way, you still can't sue them except *maybe* on false advertising but even *then* the EULA has something to say on the matter and it sure as hell isn't in your favor.
Just because the MS name is stamped on it does *not* mean you can sue them when something goes wrong. Users, companies and governments have fallen for this crock. You can't sue MS any more than you can sue "Open Source".
Ultimately you have *no* guarantee that it works or that it will be fixed in a timely manner. The guarantee that Open Source gives you is that if it comes down to fixing it yourself or hiring someone to fix it, you're free to do so. With MS your *only* option is to hope and wait for your issue to become a priority for MS and there are no competitive bids to fix your problem.
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
>>entered a formula to do a VLOOKUP on some (snip)
10 seconds on google solves the problem. if i was your wife's employer, i'd fire her. right now.
fucking sheep.
>>Excel file (list of about 1,000 contacts--name, address, etc.) before merging into Publisher (snip)
oh yea. your friend sat down and performed a sort and merge in the first 5 minutes that he used MS office. give me a break.
>>So how are companies supposed to switch to all open source applications when some won't even do the job needed?
because their employees are fucking sheep. maybe and that's a HUGE FUCKING MAYBE, 1 out of 200 can do things like vlookups, sorts and merges.
the one's who can do these things are bright enough to figure out the new syntax/commands. google and other resources are at their fingertips.
if you don't fall into the sheep, or bright category, perhaps you should shoot yourself.
I think the reason for usin semicolons instead of commas is than in Europe, we use the comma as decimal point. For that reason, using comma as separator in an intended multilanguage application is unwise at least.
And the reason newham is one of the key olympic boroughs is simple.
,before he goes, wants the olympics as a massive ego boost/memorial.Therefore ,he's bribing the poorer east london boroughs to support his olympic bid and the quid pro pro is the facilities for the games.
Most of the financially strong councils dont want the olympics because londoners will end up paying for it.All the spending will come from londoners and the extra revenue(Taxes,tourist revenues) will go to Whitehall.
Dear Ken
Makes me thankful to live in Wandsworth,with the second lowest council tax in England.
Wanted : A Signature.
I respectfully suggest that if you want average end users to report bugs, expecting them to find a page full of explanatory text, with no immediately obvious place to enter the bug information, hidden in the OOo web site, where two links later and just as you think you're going to put the data in you have to "log in", is not the way forward.
Most users won't report a bug when the process is that complicated; they have better things to do with their time, like tell everyone how OOo is crappy and full of bugs.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.