Birmingham Drops Open Source Initiative

eldavojohn writes "Birmingham, England put a stop to a half million pound project to put Linux and open source applications on library access PCs across the city. From the article, 'The council planned to roll out Linux software and applications on 1,500 desktops in libraries across the city, but in the end went no further than a 200-desktop project. Several industry watchers have voiced their concerns about the project, particularly around the number of PCs rolled out. Birmingham's expenditure averaged over 2,500 pounds per PC.' Why did they stop after 200 PCs? Because they claimed with Windows, the project would have been 100,000 pounds cheaper. One may wonder if they paid for initial training of their workforce making the first 200 more expensive than the rest but the article does not say whether or not this occurred."

Comments

And now a word from our sponsors...

[Pharmboy]

This article brought to you by..

"Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?"

Re:And now a word from our sponsors...

[zebs]

Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?"

Not Birmingham, thats for sure.

Windows can be cheaper than Linux...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when Microsoft is paying you to use Windows.

In related news...

[Harmonious Botch]

...the Birmingham city council is using gas lighting because of the cost of teaching their employees how to flip a switch to turn on electrical lights.

Re:Incompetence

[Carrot007]

And there in lies the problem.

In business the contract generally goes to someone who can talk the talk.

Unfortunatly where as any moron can knock up a windows environment (they should chaneg the cert to mcm=microsoft certified moron) it takes more than a gas bag mouth to deploy linux succesfully.

The project was likely a falire due to this.

Initially:
Gas Bag Moron: Hey I can save you money with linux?
Birmingham: Ok

After getting this contract
Gab Bag Moron (internal dialogue): So what's this linux thing, can't be that hard after all I've got microsoft cerification.

Bah.

Re:Good

[gEvil (beta)]

did they just plough through the setup wizards clicking Yes to everything??

[YES] NO CANCEL

*click*

Re:Maybe it failed for bureaucratic reasons?

[dp_wiz]

Let's not forget that most governments have unionized employees

So, that's the deal? Just ionize them!

Alabama or England, say what?

[OldHawk777]

Birmingham, Alabama or Birmingham, England what's the difference they can compare fruit and vegetables as equals, and use numbers equally well. I mean, y'all ain't got no cents, if'n ya don't know Equal is as Equal does.

Who the hell is Equal?