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.
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
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!
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. --
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
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. ]
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!
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
* 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
If you're going to post someone else's joke, it's considered polite to credit them.