Microsoft Responds to DOT Ban on Vista, Office, IE

roscoetoon writes "From the blog of Mary Jo Foley: What's Microsoft's response to the DOT's charges? A corporate spokeswoman sent this statement, via e-mail: (caution: microbrain double-speak ahead) ... "We respect the customer's decision. As with any of our other Federal customers, it's our job to help DOT maximize the value of its Enterprise Agreement through the adoption of our technology. We are engaged with large, strategic customers across government at every level, and are working closely with them on these products through their participation in our Technical Adoption Programs.""

Comments

Dramatic improvements?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

"Windows Vista, Office 2007, and IE7 are widely recognized by independent analysts to offer dramatic improvements in security, management features, new collaboration capabilities and productivity enhancements.

That's UAC, Ribbons & (still) broken CSS respectively ;-)

Re:Dramatic improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as one of the CIO's in attendance at that event, I was not impressed. Seeing windows try to look like a mac is a wonderful step forward as they embrace the user instead of the function but the UAC is just ridiculous. I can bet less than 20% of our employees will even look at those popups before clicking on anything that makes it go away.

Really?

[zappepcs]

FTFA: "Windows Vista, Office 2007, and IE7 are widely recognized by independent analysts to offer dramatic improvements in security, management features, new collaboration capabilities and productivity enhancements. Ultimately we think we can help DOT understand how these products can help its enterprise organization.

Q: When did MS start using truly independent analysts? Would that part of the statement be necessary if they had no reputation for using paid shills?

FTFA: "As DOT goes through the natural process of exploring the new capabilities of these products we expect they will continue to embrace Windows and Office as the departmental standard of DOT.

Q: Doesn't she mean that "they will eventually be forced to once again drink the koolaid?"

FTFA: "Overall our government customers are excited about the technology as well as our product pipeline.

Q: Does anyone else remember that old Chinese curse? "May your life be exciting!"

FTFA: Just last week more than 500 Public Sector CIOs from across the country joined us for our annual US Public Sector CIO Summit.

- 500 guests for free food and drink and hopefully cheaper software != 500 new customers.

FTFA: The Summit offered these CIOs to see firsthand how Microsoft is working to be a strategic partner to government and educational institutions of every size."

- They obviously didn't spend much time on all the govt. agencies, schools, even countries that are not interested in using MS products anymore. A sales pitch is a sales pitch. I hope they got some good swag!

Translation...

[doormat]

We got their money because they're on a subscription. So we really dont care what they do. Random PR speak about how great our stuff is anyways.

Re:Translation...

[cmacb]

Alternate translation:

"it's our job to help DOT maximize the value of its Enterprise Agreement through the adoption of our technology. We are engaged with large, strategic customers across government at every level,"

really means:

It's our job to sabotage this in any way possible, but we haven't adopted a strategy just yet. If necessary we will go to your boss, or your boss's boss, including, if necessary our many opportunities to influence the law in our favor.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117328195388829568 .html?mod=djemTECH

Re:Translation...

[ocbwilg]

Actually, the statement:

As with any of our other Federal customers, it's our job to help DOT maximize the value of its Enterprise Agreement through the adoption of our technology.

Means:

What do we care? They have an Enterprise agreement, which means they're paying us the same annual fee whether they decide to take advantage of their upgrade rights or not. Eventually they'll get onboard and move to Vista and Office 2007, and after that they'll move to whatever we ship next.

Embarassed?

[ichbineinneuben]

How can they say things like this with a straight face? Saying they "respect the customer's decision" then following it up by saying it's their job to foist Windows on them regardless? Where's the respect in that? Whatever else this statement may mean, it disrespects the intelligence of any reader.

Re:Watch out

[theshowmecanuck]

I'm not sure if anyone should have marked this funny. It seems so close to what is likely to happen that it should be marked insightful (but only because there is no category titled "scary as hell").

At least temporaraly

[Mycroft_514]

We have a total ban on those same products here. And we are a fortune 10 company.

As for home use, I looked at the upgrade path. I ran the checkout program provided by Microsoft. It tells me: Both printers not supported, both scanners not supported, my external hard drive (160GB) not supported, and elements of my LAN not supported.

In follow up, I have tracked down that for 1 scanner and both printers, the vender (HP) has ALREADY declared they will NOT be releasing updated drivers. The other scanner, I have to upgrade the software for (Nikon). The other items I have no word on yet.

Also, I have a Laptop with 2GB of memory and that isn't enough to run Vista well? WTF? And looking at the new feature list from MS. I don't want them wasting all that memory on the file search process. Nor do I want the DRM, so what exactly is Vista giving me besides grief?