Slashdot Mirror
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."
article is up for 10 minutes and no posts? Everyone still laughing at their keyboards or what?
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
The joke's on Newham. Let's hope they do another study in a few years and see how much they really saved.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
I think the shark Slashdot jumped a while ago must have died and left its rotting, stinking carcass somewhere....
...when the journalists have a better grasp of reality than the so-called leaders on the town council...
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".
One final point to note is that Newham will be using Internet Explorer. Steel explained that this is because Microsoft is very serious about addressing security concerns
As if I weren't chuckling a little throughout the article, I almost wet my pants on that line. Sure Microsoft is serious about addressing the security concerns, but there's JUST SO DAMN MANY!!! Finding all those security holes would be a computing task akin to solving RC-72 only difference is, in 300,000 days RC-72 will be solved and MS will probably STILL have security holes in whatever OS is running then.
...in bed
It still says this article is from The Mysterious Future.... I can reply to current threads, but not start one of my own....
Everyone remembers the (somewhat unfair) 2nd line of the stanza and forgets the extension, but I think it applies here, with no disrespect really intended to teachers...
Those that can, do.
Those that can't, teach.
Those that can't teach, administrate.
I think that sums it up...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
The unwashed masses had a glimpse of what life was like in the /. Subscriber's world. Whoooaaaah!
Email them with the subject "Ha ha" :)
http://www.newham.gov.uk
Josh
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.
Microsoft not only are getting license fees, but consulting fees.
p ?CommitteeId=294&CF=Cabinet&MeetingID=2149&DF=22/0 4/2004&Ver=4#AI2970
d oned_vehicle_form.jsp? report an abandoned car...). This guy should loose his job, and there should be a public investigation, as there is call for one in this instance, we are not talking peanuts here, millions of pounds that will be invested into systems that are inheretly costly and have huge running costs - not to mention the costs of viruses. Newham have had thier fair share of virus related incidents (news on website).
/.?)
Isn't this illegal? If this is classed as consultation I am sure that there is somethign to stop conflicts of interest.
The guy responsible is Contact: Richard Steel, Head of ICT Tel 020 8430 4301 richard.steel@newham.gov.uk.
richard.steel@newham.gov.uk You can petition here sensibly.
Details of the settlement from the minutes of the council: http://moderngov.newham.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.As
From the Newham Council website (where you can http://www.newham.gov.uk/content/Environment/aban
(what happened to this stoy on
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
On the risks of Open Source:
Open source vendors are currently experiencing more vulnerabilities and receiving more security advisories than Microsoft
Let me get this straight.... because OSS publishes and fixes their bugs, rather than MS' security through obsecurity (don't publish security advisories), OSS gets docked more points??!
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.
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.
I don't care if you like MS products or not; the statement above is not gounds for any business decision. When will people learn to evaluate products correctly. If MS wins on security, then say they win on security. If they don't, don't say they are very serious about getting there. Tell them they haven't done a good enough job yet and they need to prove it first.
They've set the new template for Microsoft negotiations. Of course, if they actually cared about the community they supposedly represent, they'd have actually followed through with the initial suggestion. But that's asking way too much.
Can we all mod down the Newham Council for trolling?
All the way to the bank.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
was this removed and retitled with a different headline? I also found it strange that no one had posted any comments on the original story
Not to worry! I've saved the original here. As for the original headline, I think it was just too fractured and unclear: "MS Funded Study Deciding Factor in 10yr Deal" makes it sound like the study was deciding something.
I also saved the original 11 comments, most of which were asking "where are all the comments?" I suspect a glitch in the system, but I'll leave that to the experts to explain.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Poor Microsoft. They've never really been exposed to competitve pressures before.
2) Damned Lies
3) Microsoft Funded TCO studies
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
Apparently it was this last statement where Microsoft said it was a better choice over open source because it was cheaper and more secure that caused the crowd of journalists to suddenly laugh out loud.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
From the article: "One final point to note is that Newham will be using Internet Explorer. Steel explained that this is because Microsoft is very serious about addressing security concerns."
One has to wonder if they're actually being serious here.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Maybe the bad press of the incident combined with the ever-growing list of XP SP2 application breakage will cause Newham to rethink their agreement.
You know, the funny thing is that if they had gone with Linux (RH, Suse/Novell, etc) they'd get a new, updated OS every 2 to 3 years if they wanted it. With the 10 year MS deal, they'll get Longhorn (maybe), but nothing else most likely. So at the end of the deal, they'll be like all those NT4 users were a few months back. Sad...
Microsoft must really be begining to feel the heat if they are starting to push for 10 year contracts. I'll concede that a sense of permanance is good in IT (and especially local authority), but 10 years (in any industry) is a very, very, very long time to be betting on one horse.
Just look back at 1994 and see what has changed sense - and what hasn't changed. All the world has changed, except for Microsoft.
I just hope that Newham Council survuve this contract. Repeat after me: Microsoft doesn't scale. There is (believe it or not) a reason why it appears cheaper than all that nice Peoplesoft/Oracle/IBM - its not as good.
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
From the article, Netproject's Eddie Bleasdale says his consultancy was used as a negotiating tool to get a better deal out of Microsoft. He argues that the council never really intended to deploy an open source solution at all - because it doesn't have the expertise to do so. This wouldn't be the first time. How many times have we seen governments and large corporations fake the move to OSS only to get a better deal from MS?
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
Oh, wait.
Fuck. Sorry.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
If I were a British taxpayer (yes I know the term is redundant), I'd have to think that either:
- Newham knowingly allowed a sales pitch to be used as if it were logical unbiased analysis (in which case they're idiots)
- they didn't know (in which case they're idiots)
- they did know but didn't care (in which case they're not good stewards of the public's money)
- they found out and but didn't demand a greater discount from MS (in which case they're not good stewards of the public's money).
Anyway, I hope other public entities take the proper opportunity to be more aggressive with Microsoft in negotiating lower prices given the new competitive landscape afforded by open source solutions."Provided by the management for your protection."
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.
One final point to note is that Newham will be using Internet Explorer. Steel explained that this is because Microsoft is very serious about addressing security concerns.
Aren't alot of the security concerns because of IE. That had me laughing. Firefox 5 secuirty issues vs IE 1459879683 security issues and still counting for IE.
I belive is TCO studies include the cost of administrators, Correct me if I'm wrong...
I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but from my experience a mediocre UN*X/Linux administrator draws a higher salary than a "expert" Windows administrator. But on the other hand a good UN*X/Linux administrator can do "more", in less time, than the MS Administrators I know...
The only problem is that the study was, you guessed it, not independent at all but funded by Microsoft.
No one claimed it was independent. There were actually two studies: one by an avowed open source advocacy consulting firm (which was hoping to score a consulting gig charging Newham for 'coverting' to open source) and one by CapGemini, which was indeed openly commissioned by Microsoft.
I'd suggest both studies might have had an ax to grind, making the reality a lot more mundane than the tin-foil-hat-wearing slashdotters would want to acknowledge.
Everyone repeat after me... Resistance is futile. Resistance is futile. Resistance is futile.
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.
Newham is traditionally one of the UK's 'loony left' local govts -- marxist/socialists who have little knowledge of or interest in government, but a lot of greed and a lot of the kind of ideals and emotions people normally grow out of at age 15. Honestly, if you haven't witnessed UK politics, you really can't imagine it.
It's interesting how the ones with the biggest fanciest and even most seriously-held ideals are often the most corrupt in their actual manner of business... that goes for a lot more than just UK borough councils.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
The british are a very polite and refined people, who dont like to make a fuss over things. At the board meeting to decide the proper software to use, the chairman, noting the lack of natural light, said "Gentleman what the council needs is to install windows in here". Of course the overzealous microsoft representative leaped up, shook hands with him and went off to tell the master of his victory. The proper and refined council, not wanting to be rude, just decided to let it slide.
I still can't, for the life of me, see how MS can say with a straight face that something that costs money is cheaper than something that doesn't cost anything?
I'm not talking about home desktops which frankly they would be lying through their teeth if they actually tried to pull that one out saying they're cheaper. But I'm talking about large corporations with IT departments.
IT wouldn't be spending yearly cash on service contracts and the like with open source, wouldn't they instead just HIRE their support? Hire IT pros that KNOW how to program and configure and support and fix the open source servers/databases? You pay for the IT people anyway, why pay in addition to that for service contracts?
You have company X. They need a new server infrastructure. They hire the people that will build the system from the ground up with open source solutions. They don't buy any software, not even Redhat. They use open source, build the databases, the os, the web server etc etc. The only they they buy is the hardware to run it on.
After they build it, you keep them as your IT department to maintain everything. No service contracts...not even to Redhat or SUSE or anyone. Now, how is that more expensive than the MS solution?
I obviously am out of my league here and have no idea how any of this works, I'm just wondering. Can anyone set me straight here?
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
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.
You'd be surprised. My Dad told me a story of when he was a kid - Dr Pepper was a relatively new drink at the time, and he and his friends tried it and didn't like it - but his friends kept buying it!
My Dad: "Why do you keep buying that stuff? You said you didn't like it!"
His friends: "Yeah, but you might win a free bottle!"
Basically, his friends kept buying stuff they didn't like because they might win more of it.
- What the US government has to say about IE security
- About Windows security vs. Linux security
- About 'Total Cost of Ownership' (TCO) statistics
How much more proof do you need to stop using Windows?But how much are they paying for their IT staff already? These are corporations that don't just have a server sitting in the closet and have a tech come in every 6 months. I'm talking about people there daily.
Hell, a little Pre-press shop I was in had an IT staff. Why pay for the staff AND a service contract on top of that?
So yeah, 80 grand a year isn't that far off and you would still save money.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
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."
Your dad needed to find new friends. The ones he had were obviously deffective.
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.
What's wrong with monkeys? I like monkeys.
The pet store was selling them for five cents a piece. I thought that odd since they were normally a couple thousand each. I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I bought 200. I like monkeys.
I took my 200 monkeys home. I have a big car. I let one drive. His name was Sigmund. He was retarded. In fact, none of them were really bright. They kept punching themselves in their genitals. I laughed. Then they punched my genitals. I stopped laughing.
I herded them into my room. They didn't adapt very well to their new environment. They would screech, hurl themselves off of the couch at high speeds and slam into the wall. Although humorous at first, the spectacle lost its novelty halfway into its third hour.
Two hours later I found out why all the monkeys were so inexpensive: they all died. No apparent reason. They all just sorta' dropped dead. Kinda' like when you buy a goldfish and it dies five hours later. Damn cheap monkeys.
I didn't know what to do. There were 200 dead monkeys lying all over my room, on the bed, in the dresser, hanging from my bookcase. It looked like I had 200 throw rugs.
I tried to flush one down the toilet. It didn't work. It got stuck. Then I had one dead, wet monkey and 199 dead, dry monkeys.
I tried pretending that they were just stuffed animals. That worked for a while, that is until they began to decompose. It started to smell real bad.
I had to pee but there was a dead monkey in the toilet and I didn't want to call the plumber. I was embarrassed.
I tried to slow down the decomposition by freezing them. Unfortunately there was only enough room for two monkeys at a time so I had to change them every 30 seconds. I also had to eat all the food in the freezer so it didn't all go bad.
I tried burning them. Little did I know my bed was flammable. I had to extinguish the fire.
Then I had one dead, wet monkey in my toilet, two dead, frozen monkeys in my freezer, and 197 dead, charred monkeys in a pile on my bed. The odor wasn't improving.
I became agitated at my inability to dispose of my monkeys and to use the bathroom. I severely beat one of my monkeys. I felt better.
I tried throwing them way but the garbage man said that the city wasn't allowed to dispose of charred primates. I told him that I had a wet one. He couldn't take that one either. I didn't bother asking about the frozen ones.
I finally arrived at a solution. I gave them out as Christmas gifts. My friends didn't know quite what to say. They pretended that they like them but I could tell they were lying. Ingrates. So I punched them in the genitals.
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.
I still can't, for the life of me, see how MS can say with a straight face that something that costs money is cheaper than something that doesn't cost anything?
It is pretty easy to say that when you look at the total cost of ownership (TCO). For software, expecially on a network, the price of the software is maybe 1/3 of the total cost to use it. Note the difference in words: price vs. cost. Price is how much money is spent to buy something. Cost is how much money is spent to use it. Part of the cost is training. Switching everyone from MS Office to Open Office has a zero software cost, but sending each person to training classes so they are comfortable enough to use it, and then the time it takes for them to build up their effieciency all needs to be factored in to the total cost. Say you send everyone in the office to a one day OO class. Figure $200/person plus their salary for the day since no regular work is getting done plus a lower effiency rate of work for the next month or two plus the time spent planning the training time. And that is the total cost of migrating to OO from MS Office.
MS makes sure that migrating away from their software is demonstratably more expensive then staying with them.
Many times, it is not, and the results are published anyway.
Thats not entirely true. That's the big problem with drug studies funded by these companies. When the results dont align, they bury the study.
I have heard the major organizations are trying to get drug companies to announce when said studies begin, that way everyone will be looking for the results, and it will be harder to bury unfavorable ones.
Heard it on a story on NPR.org about 6 months ago.
IF and only IF they throw the whole damn thing out and start over.
Windows is too complex to fix in in it's current incarnation. With COM/DCOM, ActiveX, band-aids piled on top of band-aids instead of fixing things right the first time, it's amazing that XP even WORKS let alone is as "secure" as it currently is (It's the most robust and secure OS from MS to date and it's still got the holes of a seive...).
Sure security is their top priority- but after the fact is the worst possible time to be worrying about that sort of thing. It's just NOT going to happen the way you're claiming- it's a sysiphean task to begin with and adding the problems of not breaking everything that wasn't designed with security in mind just makes it ten times worse.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
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.
"They have a tendency to make up new words every second day or so."
That's reposterous.
I live in the borough next to Newham. Just to give a sense of scale I can walk to Newham in 10 minutes. And you can cross it by tube in less time. Although driving across it can take over an hour.
I also work 50% of the time in Newham.
It is mainly crumbling Victorian buildings with streets barely wide enoungh to drive the essential service vehicles (ambulances, refuse trucks, etc) let alone cars, busses and delivery vehicles.
It is also one of the key boroughs in Londons 2012 Olympic bid.
Now rather than spending money on IT why aren't they investing further in the things that the residents need. Repairing the schools, hospitals, policing.
You have to assume that this funding is from central government as the local council taxes wouldn't provide for this and would hopefully see a revolt amongst voters come the local elections (if they ever found out about it). Given it is such a poor and deprived area an OSS it project for the region would have been a superb idea possibly even run as a charity and gaining tax free status.
Hopefully the government audit office will investigate deal as smacks of improprietry.
"goatse? What's that? Anyone have a link?" - AC
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.
Funny you should mention this. People generally use service contracts with 3rd party companies because it is more expensive to hire people to do a job, than it is to pay a yearly fee, and be covered X hours a month.
The country I live in, has a very agressive tax policy. For instance, when you work in my country, and your net wage is 1.250, the state adds 30% taxes to that for the individual, and an extra 7% for healthcare and wellfare (I hope I spelled this right). This means the company actually has to pay you 1.250*1.37.
Most Americans stare at you in disbelief when you tell them this, but this is only the beginning of the story. The company itself has to pay the goverment additional taxes (about 30% of your net income), and additional contributions to healthcare, welfare and pension funds.
Now, let's start talking benefits. Your employee will want a cellphone and a subscription if he has to call a lot for work and is on location. Wait a minute, did you just say "on location"? Hell, throw in a small car (nothing fancy) that needs to be leased every month. And then, you need to have a pensionfund and insurance for ALL of those employees, because once you decided it would be a good thing when the company was small.
These employees also want leave of abscense, certification (which the company needs from time to time), expenses (hey, those cars don't drive themselves you know). To top it all off, if you want to fire someone who is out of his trial time (which by standard is 30 days, but can be extended up to 90 days for high wages), you have to keep them in service for at least another 3 months to over 3 years (depending on how long they've worked for your company), or just get them out of the building and pay the equivalent sum (and let's not forget taxes).
Now look at the option of paying those 1500 a month for a company that has a multitude of people only a phonecall or e-mail away for that service contract. You'll get 20 hours of technical support for that price, and they are often more efficient than that staff of 10 people who are constantly nagging for more benefits. Instead, you hire one or two guys who do the grunt work, and the rest goes to a company who'll service you faster than you can walk to the IT department and shout at the nearest techie.
I hope this was enlightening, when I first started counting how much I made I was disappointed, now I know why we're understaffed and pay so much money for those damned service contracts in the first place.
PS: I typed the € symbol everywhere, but I'm too lazy to type € everywhere now.
Still why waste the money on such a transparently corrupt "study". Just make the decision in a smokey backroom and move on.
They have to at least go through the motions of doing it legitimately so that the bovine masses don't realise they're being led to the slaughterhouse.
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.
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.
Exactly. Find me a UN*X-guy wh's willing to walk to each machine in an organization, they can all do what they have to from their desks. And while Windows admins struggle with .BATs and registry files to automate administration, the UN*X guy has phat shell scripts that can do much more.
The problem I always see with Windows organizations is that they have to make a million compromises to make certain legacy apps work, usually negating most features of their 'advanced' OS. You see places using FAT32 on their XP boxes so they can keep their auto-imaging tools from ten years ago, you see file and print services turned on by default because users think it's OK to share office files P2P, even though you have NAS.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
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.
Farming out support to an organisation that has varied skillsets with people in different locations is very important to us.
So far, the Linux system has been a success largely due to Service Pack 2 for XP. The MS team are using the latest group policy options to lock down the XP clients with all the latest NTLM v2, SMB signing, schannel and so on and Samba 3.0.4 handles it beautifully, in fact, handles it better than other flavours of Microsoft Windows. Saying that, it did take us a while to figure out that Samba 3.0.0 had a bug in it to stop it working with NTLMv2 but thanks to open source, it was documented in the freely available developer mailing list archives.
This has really helped me sell free as in freedom to management. The Newham council debarkale has sent shockwaves round the UK gov't depts (like mine) who are using Linux and even though the whole thing stinks, procurement folks are asking us why Linux instead of MS now that Newham have proven it is cheaper!!!
This was an important win for Microsoft and a complete diaster for desktop Linux in UK councils.
rd
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.
That's a fascinating article. I think I just watched somebody advocating OSS alternatives to Microsoft because in the Windows XP version, you actually have to run a couple of command lines, view a couple of text files, and understand what a port is, all in order to configure a firewall! <shock> <horror> Can anybody see the staggering irony of this pithy attack? Particularly when -- as the article notes, but not exactly prominently -- the user is following a point-by-point list of instructions to do it, and only has to do it if the normal, one step, GUI-based approach doesn't work anyway. (I would remind the less attentive reader that the alternative under consideration is a Linux-based system, where as we all know, no configuration work ever requires you to step outside a highly tuned and immaculately user-friendly GUI environment.)
In fact, if you read over the original Reg article, the (not so) independent study may have been funded by MS, but the points it makes are pretty obvious. If they have 120 custom MS Office-based applications running already, with all the attendant development costs already paid and all the staff already trained, can any OSS zealot really tell us with a straight face that it will be cheaper to switch to OpenOffice? The other points quoted in the Reg article are similarly self-evident and entirely credible; the security one is probably most tenuous, but does anyone really believe OSS is a silver bullet here? <ahem> shell: <ahem> How many large organisations do you really know that have been hit hard because of a bug in Microsoft software?
I know some of Microsoft's FUD is pretty laughable, but guys, with the anti-Microsoft FUD in this thread you've truly exemplified how OSS can surpass Microsoft's efforts...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
BSA.
NEVER worry about licensing issues again. Go all open source and when the BSA comes to your door you can tell them to go take a flying leap.
Which is why large shops SHOULD pay for an independent cost study by a qualified consultant, customized to their needs.
, we ask him to look into what it will cost us, or save us.
For medium and small businesses, there are some common scenarios that can be cost-studied, and if you are a good fit to a scenario that's been well-studied, you can use that study with some confidence.
Suppose I'm a small retail shop with 1 Windows 2000 Server running MS's SQL database, MS's mail server, a third-party business-grade firewall/av/security package, MS's print server, MS's web server, and 5 terminal-services client access licenses; 2 business-office PCs each running MS Windows 2000, MS Office 2000, one of which has Visual Basic and some custom-grown apps to access my database, and the other has MS Frontpage. I have 3 pcs that are dedicated point-of-sale machines running POS software on MS-Windows 2000.
Not counting the spam my mail-server deals with, all of my servers are under a very light load.
Nobody in the office has much training on PCs except for the apps we actually use. Two of us are competent with MS Word, MS-Excel, and MS-Office, I'm reasonably competent with Frontpage, the other guy runs the LAN and the database. We aren't techies and have no desire to become techies. We outsource with a consultant for big decisions and for help when things break beyond our capability to fix it.
Our consultant just told us that in a few years we'll be vulnerable to OS bugs, and that we have the option of switching to OSS. After he explains what OSS is, that it's free as in freedom and while-not-free-for-us-might-be-cheaper-as-in-beer
Now, surely, someone's done a study on the TCO of small stores who run setups similar to ours. Our consultant can use that study as a starting point for a custom study just for us, saving us a bundle over doing the same study from scratch.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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.
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.
I think the answer is most. It seems that the least tech-ignorant member of staff is often elevated to the status of admin after demonstrating the skills required to change the resolution on the desktop, or clicking the buttons on a pdc's dialog boxes without screwing it up (too much). I admin Linux servers at work, but routinely end up fixing config screwups with Windows servers or desktops; or offering hints to the admin about the causes of problems.
It seems to me that the Win admins like the fact that Windows is so unreliable and bug-ridden as it gives them a scapegoat for their own lack of knowledge. The SP2 update to XP has introduced horrendous problems for us, since the admin decided to just start installing it across the machines, causing many to become unusable, and the users twiddling their thumbs. Sadly, management have become used to this type of thing and so consider it "normal". If anyone even notices my servers, I consider it a problem...
No, Windows seems to be a godsend to admin wannabes, and a nice "safe" route for lazy, disinterested, mindless clock-punchers...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Company's generally like having third-party support contracts.
AAAARGHH!!!!
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
You know what? I would have thought OOo would be a no-brainer if it was all I heard it was cracked up to be because MS Office seems way too expensive. I hadn't used Open Office before, though, so I didn't really know first-hand how it was.
Just recently, I installed OOo on one of our computers at home. My wife works with Excel every day at work--a lot of crunching numbers, auditing, complex formulas. I turned her loose on the spreadsheet app and watched as she ran it through a test. She put in some sample data and then entered a formula to do a VLOOKUP on some of the data. This is a basic formula she uses every day at work. OOo has a VLOOKUP function, but it just barfed and reported an error for the value in that cell. We looked up the parameters for that function in Open Office, and it did have one more parameter to enter, but we filled in that extra value and tried the thing several different ways and couldn't get it to report anything other than an error.
Second story. A friend of ours had to use our computer to do some stuff with an Excel file (list of about 1,000 contacts--name, address, etc.) before merging into Publisher to print postcards to these people. He didn't need any formulas; just needed to sort the contacts--by zip code or by name or whatever. He ran the sort he wanted, and it seemed good, except as he was getting through the output, he found that it had barfed on even that. It had partially sorted the list, but a lot of it was still random and there were parts of the list that hadn't been sorted at all, so he had to go through manually sorting a bunch of them.
So, from personal experience, if you are just going to look at static data in a spreadsheet and not do anything to it, OOo might be fine, but to...I don't know...actually USE it, OOo just doesn't work. Not something you can just teach people in a one-day training course. So how are companies supposed to switch to all open source applications when some won't even do the job needed? Maybe they could go with Linux and Crossover Office in this case, but keep a sense of reality people.
I did get to use the word processing app, and that worked fine--didn't run into any weird problems there, but the spreadsheet app was garbage.
I'm not trolling or flaming on this. I like open source and really wanted Open Office to work. I'll keep using open source programs where they are effective, but it has to pass that functional test.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
Open Source's openness only applies to those who are interested in it, or more to the point, those who are interested in sharing the ideas that are implemented in the OS/Software. It doesn't matter to an English teacher or a clerk in a government office that they can look at the source because they have no idea what it says anyway. Any sharing of ideas that happens in a classroom that is facilitated by a computer is with other opinions over the Internet, and you don't need an OSS system for that. OSS may allow a carpenter to freely train, but you have to remember the carpenters are programmers and admins interested in working with Unix systems. These are trained or burgeoning professionals, and as such, OSS means very little to the average person.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
An anon coward post:
An allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.
In this case, I'm obviously playing off of the parent post's use of the term "retarded monkeys". The deeper message is you get what you pay for: nickle monkeys die, and in this case the so-called "cheaper" software sucks.
I took this AC up on his challenge, and in fact he is correct. If you google for "vlookup ooo", the answer is the first hit. Not bad...
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
That joke was first forwarded to me @sitvxc.stevens-tech.edu 10 years ago. That particular machine (sitvxc) has been dead for over 8 years, and I've been told that email sent to stevens-tech.edu bounces (the school uses stevens.edu now).
So I tell you what... You find the true author, and give him credit. I doubld dog dare ya :-)
And FWIW, google doesn't find that story anywhere on slashdot.
Did you submit the bugs to the OO.o bug tracker? If enough people start submitting these bugs, they'll eventually get fixed and OO.o really will become a killer office productivity app. If you're interested, the OO.o bug tracker is here.
This is odd because OO and Excel not only have the same number of params for VLOOKUP they also have the same meaning. Granted the last param in OO is called "sort order" while in Excel it is "Range_lookup", but they do the same thing.
I tested both the Excel and OO apps with the same table and got the same results. Both find the nearest match to the first param in the first column of the array given in the second param and return the value found in the column specified in the 3rd param. The 4th param specifies exact match if present and FALSE.
Try using the OO AutoPilot; I find it easier to work with than Excel. It seems to have the same info but is just more intuitive to me.
I used to use Excel for crunching reliability data and determining fitness for sale of hardware products based on expected PPM failure rates (that was 5 years ago). I had zero trouble with OO and actually found going back to Excel cumbersome.
I have worked at companies that have a bunch of Excel templates that they used for specific tasks. If you are a USER and not a CREATOR then starting with a blank Excel sheet will be difficult, too.
Sample VLOOKUP test:
1, 2, 6
2, 3, 7
3, 4, 8
4, 5, 8
5, 6, 9
6, 7, 9
7, 8, 0
and here is the formula for cell D1:
=VLOOKUP(3.3;A1:C7;3)
The answer is 8
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.
If Microsoft says it enough maybe they will believe it. I saw a show on the history channel about Bill Gates and the person said that when me meets with his people he does his characteristic rocking back and forth and so everyone around him starts doing the same thing. Maybe in these efforts to "Be Bill" they go along with whatever he says no matter how ludicrous or untrue.
Bills rocking back and forth is usually a sign of:
1. Autism
2. Hyperactivity
3. Attention Deficit Disorder
or a combination of all three. For more information on Bill Gates condition try the following link.
http://members.aol.com/erichuf/Linux3.html
If you're going to post someone else's joke, it's considered polite to credit them.
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.