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Taiwanese Parliament votes Against Microsoft
linumax writes "Taiwan's parliament has voted to end its dependence on Microsoft software, demanding that the government reduce purchases from the software giant by 25 percent this year. The resolution, passed on Friday, is an attempt by the island's law-making body to end the near monopoly Microsoft has with local government offices, a legislative aide said. Local newspaper Commercial Times said however that the resolution may not be binding because it runs against fair trade regulations in Taiwan. Officials at Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission declined to comment."
Microsoft offers China software for their missile guiding systems and naval fleet.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
The refered article says: "Local newspaper Commercial Times said however that the resolution may not be binding because it runs against fair trade regulations in Taiwan. Officials at Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission declined to comment." Why now then, and not 10 years ago? What's the drip of water that flooded the bucket? (Dutch saying translated to bad english).
If past form is anything to go by Ballmer or another senior executive will be booking their flights to head down and do a deal. Expect a large discount to be forthcoming that would allow the government to continue with its purchasing and still meet the 25 per cent target. It's happened before but the question is how long Microsoft can continue along that route. Discounting is all very well but once more governments get in on the game it's going to start costing. Why is it one supposes that Microsoft seems to move faster when a government threatens to stop sales than when they threaten it with an enquiry? This tells you a lot about the effectiveness of competition regulations in a WTO world.
Way to go Taiwan! I expect many more Countries to move their Government IT infrastructures over to OSS in the year ahead.
I'm sure I am not the only one snickering at the irony at the comment about potential Fair Trade violation -- against MS, which is an Internationally convicted Monopolist.
Which begs the question, are Taiwanese Lawmakers so stupid to make laws that prevent their Governemnt from having a real choice for purchases, or are MS's lobbyists also very active over at the WTO?
> They can replace it with OSX computers, thus spending a lot more money in the process, or they can use some Linux variety which will not support most of the software they need, requiring custom solutions and ports, thus spending a lot more money in the process. So which one will it be?
The real question is, do they want to save a lot of money in the short run or a hell of a lot in the long run?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
use some Linux variety which will not support most of the software they need, requiring custom solutions and ports, thus spending a lot more money in the process.
Who said freedom was cheap?
Besides, this would be a one-time cost that would get them off the Microsoft upgrade treadmill - a cost that would pay for itself in time.
This sounds like the common strategy to deal with the Microsoft problem:
1) Draw a box around all existing Microsoft software infesting the government or company in question. Forbid the growth of any Microsoft software outside this box.
2) Once the Microsoft infestation has been contained and growth halted, slowly start purging the existing Microsoft software and formats with clean and open solutions like OpenOffice, OpenDocument, Apache, Linux, BSD, XML, etc...
After Microsoft fits them with software, the standard procedure includes:
- Boot up missile command system.
- First thing you do is install latest security patches, or else some kid in San Jose, California is going to take control of your missile.
- Log in to Hotmail.com to get the target coordinates from your superior officer. You will find it buried somewhere in the middle of 80 or so M3NSGR0WTH spams.
- After your clear the pop-up messages blocking the launch widget, launch the missile.
- Restart whole prodecure after missile crashes in the blue ocean of death well short of its target.
MS has serious corporate affairs problems and its lobbying strategies are part of the game.
E.g. in Europe: When MS gets the scum of US lobbying to Europe and they are unable to adapt to Europe, no wonder parliament rejects them. Even EU-Commissioner Wallström spoke negatively about Microsoft:
"And I was very disappointed to learn that Microsoft has agreed to block Chinese blog entries that use words like democracy, freedom, human rights and demonstration." It seems like Microsoft is not alone in "bad company"." -- which implies the Commissioner openly called MS a "bad company".
Guess Taiwan will also be excited about those MS-"relations" to China.
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I mean, look at political radicals like DCI/TechCentralStation, or persons like Jonathan Zuck or Hugo Lueders which served Microsoft's interests in lobbying. No wonder they lose.
Whenever Ms is in trouble they hire a whole universe of unsound lobbyists which poisons their reputation in Parliament. Like the tobacco industry.
Media hates Microsoft, loves anti-MS stories. Everybody knows Microsoft and its products. Good for nasty stories.
Microsoft lobbyists usually do serious mistakes which fire back on Microsoft.
What will those idiots do now? Hire everybody they can get and further ruin their reputation in Taiwan. Hire lobbyists which will execute the strategy the public expects. What will civil society do? Gratulate MS for the great aid to their lobbying efforts.
I wonder what this means for Taiwanese hardware makers that, until now, have only provided Windows drivers.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
A chair with the words "Made in Taiwan" is being thrown.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ tw.html
22,894,384 (2005) in population, 13+ million people are online. Making legislative body to make policy against a major player in computing industry (Microsoft in this case), may create one of the most damaging ripple for Microsoft.
Although that 13.8 million internet users won't turn off their Windows machines over night, but it's plausable to tinker with the idea that Taiwanese government may legislate a similar policy to goverment contractors and corporations dealing business with Taiwanese government to enforce private sectors to depend less on Microsoft product. And knowning China and her relationship with Microsoft, this may be interesting to see how Chinese government will react to this plausable senario.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Who'd a thunk it! Next they'll be a story about the Chinese negotiating with Hollywood to drive down the prices on DVDs.
It's a Whole New World!
The article doesn't say that the govenrment must reduce the use of the Windows OSes; just Microsoft software, so Taiwan could just use different databases, office suites, etc
When choosing an operating system for government use, particularly in areas such as law enforcement, taxation, military, or legislative administration, the choice between open and closed source operating systems boils down to national security.
By choosing an open source system such as Linux, a nation has the power to audit and fix holes in the operating system which leave the government open to espionage. Choose Windows, and you will have to count on an American company to keep your computers secure from such glaring problems as the WMF bug. Choose Windows, and you will have to hope that American intelligence agencies and Microsoft billionaires and their buddies are honest enough to proactively discover problems, inform you of them, and fix them. Choose Windows, and you bank on Microsoft spending its money towards improving its existing products, (through, for example, exhaustive security audits), as opposed to earmarking that money towards ridiculous expansionistic endeavors into other business markets (too many to list here), and polishing up the next versions of their cash cows: Office and Windows.
Now, interestingly enough, this argument can be expanded to encompass concerns about corporate espionage. Do you trust your corporate secrets to Bill Gates?
If I was a MP in Taiwan, I'd introduce legislation to BAN government use of proprietary, closed-source operating systems. It's a matter of national security.
But not because of licencing. Because of national interest. Recently a union threatened to shut down the power plants and oil refinery infrastrure via programming and the government was terrified at the prospect of not being able to get their software running, or, if something was done to damage it, fixed.