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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."
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.
...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".
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!
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?
2) Damned Lies
3) Microsoft Funded TCO studies
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.