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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."
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".
Sure without a doubt it's all about the money. Still why waste the money on such a transparently corrupt "study". Just make the decision in a smokey backroom and move on. At least that will save tax payers the burden of paying for something that only amounts to smoke and mirrors.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Sadly I can imagine that they are.
It's like a car salesman saying "I know this model has a bad safety rating but we are very concerned about safety. So go ahead and use it and in some unspecified amount of time we'll make the seat belts work."
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.
* 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.
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."
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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.
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- - 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
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.
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