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U.S. Justice Dept. Chooses Corel over Microsoft

Posted by timothy on from the maybe-they'll-even-use-open-formats dept.

peg0cjs writes "The Justice Department, which challenged Microsoft Corp. in courtrooms for nearly a decade over antitrust violations, will pay more than $2 million each year to buy business software from Corel Corp, according to this article from CANOE. 'The Justice Department will make WordPerfect software available to more than 20 organizations inside the agency, but not the FBI or Drug Enforcement Administration, which use Microsoft's Office business software exclusively, said Mary Aileen O'Donovan, a program manager in the Justice Management Division.' According to the article, the deal is worth up to $13.2 million over five years for Ontario-based Corel. Has sanity finally set in, or is this just a blip in Microsoft's dominance in controlling government software decisions?"

5 of 390 comments (clear)

  1. The real reason for lack of interagency coop by Red+Moose · · Score: 5, Funny
    So....with the FBI *not* having Corel and say, the CIA *does* have it, is this a reason why interagency cooperation is difficult? E.g., Some agent gets info of a terrorist plot and his comp crashes and all he has is the stupid fucking happy-dog in Office to help him? Does the FBI send stupid Outlook HTML emails to the CIA saying look this crazy fucker is going to Guatemala to buy suitcase bombs so stop him, but the CIA get it and can't read crappy illegible Outlook mail, so they send it to the NSA who with their l33t sk1llz transfer it to .txt but they can't get the information out because it's deep inside loads supid meta bullshit from Outlook.

    How about no-one buys anything for any amount and just uses Open Office.

    --

    Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better

  2. good drugs by kirkb · · Score: 5, Funny

    but not the Drug Enforcement Administration, which use Microsoft's Office business software exclusively

    Hmmm... I wonder what they're smoking...

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    Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
  3. Re:Alt-F3 Tells All by lukewarmfusion · · Score: 4, Funny

    Superuser tip: If you're using Microsoft Office, hit Alt-F4 to improve interface.

  4. Re:Alt-F3 Tells All by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Funny
    Regarding why no OpenOffice - well, I guess the OpenOffice lobbiests just didn't know as nice restaraunts to take the decision makers.

    "What do you got against Taco Bell?"

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  5. Re:Alt-F3 Tells All by tepples · · Score: 5, Funny

    Which is annoying, as MS Word .doc is the standard format.

    ISO what? IEEE what? ECMA what? You keep using the term "standard", but I do not think it means what you think it means.