Air Force Orders Up A Custom Windows Monoculture

Soulfader writes "It seems that the Air Force has not learned from the Navy's folly in single-source mammoth contracts and their attendant problems, and is now working on something similar with Dell and Microsoft. Particularly interesting is the article's assertion that the Air Force is 'fed up' with Microsoft OS problems--but not enough to switch to something else. Instead, they're going to be getting a custom 'solution' of Windows products specially configured for their use. Is this the ever-hoped-for 'good' version of Windows, or more along the line of the sucks-in-new-and-interesting-ways version of Highlander II?"

Comments

Actually, Windows can be quite stable...

[jarich]

I've found at work and at home that Windows (since late NT4) can be quite stable ~if~ you don't install tons of junk software.

I've had to put my 6 year old on her own machine because her kiddy games makes Windows unstable, but my wife and myself both run tons of "mainstream" software, ranging from Doom to UT to banking software to Eclipse to video editing software.

My machine doesn't lock up and it doesn't crash and neither does hers.

If the Navy gets a cut of Windows with all the games cut out and they remove the ability for the field user to install the junk apps, they might have something very useful (in a work environment... not for home users)

Re:Our tax dollars hard(ly) at work.

[bm17]

I have had some experience with military procurement. It is scary and has nothing to do with logic. The people who do the purchasing are not in the military. They are career civilians. The military officers who oversee them only spend a few years in that capacity before moving on to other posts. They have no real opportunity to institute reforms even they are the ones affected by the purchases. The civilian purchasers develop (I believe) unethical reletionships certain prefered vendors. I've also seen a tendency for government emplyees to avoid taking responsibility for anything. I assume that this has something to do with the way blame is passed around. Furthermore (and possibly due to responsibility avoidance) the military generates a huge amount of rules that must be followed to the letter. This is done mindlessly. If at some point there was an incident involving a Delrin part, then Delrin might be banned from all future milspec parts. The amount of money that an item costs means nothing compared to the need to satisfy paperwork. And speaking of paperwork I doubt that and Linux distributor can hold a candle to Microsoft when it comes to filling out the endless reams of paperwork required to contract with the military. It's just insane. And you have to know all of the bizzare customs they have. So, in short, don't expect military procurement to make any sort of sense until such time as the entire system is overhauled.