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Japanese Government to Move to OSS
An anonymous reader writes "Linuxworld has up an article on the Japanese government's plan to reduce its reliance on a single IT vendor by moving to open source software. 'Oracle, NEC, IBM, HP, Hitachi and Dell are among 10 IT equipment and software vendors that are forming a consortium to develop and sell Linux-based servers and computers for the Japanese market. The move by the vendors to collaborate on Linux in Japan comes from a edict from the country's government to make Linux and open source a priority for all IT procurements, starting this July.' The government has said explicitly it wants to decrease its reliance on Microsoft as a server operating system platform."
They won't like Japan moving away from their products. If Japan does it, then South Korea may follow, and then who knows what the future will hold in the Asian market? Microsoft has had an overwhelming market share in these countries for very long, and even though Japanese designers do use Macintosh computers, there's simply no way to get by without access to a Windows PC, due to the governmental reliance and the huge amount of Internet applications that require IE6. It will take quite some time for businesses to follow, but imagine if they lost a fair chunk of their share in those markets: it would mean a big loss, both in business potential and in PR, since it's certainly not doing your company any good when an entire country is moving away from it (especially when it's a big and important one in the field of technology like Japan).
The government has said explicitly it wants to decrease its reliance on Microsoft as a server operating system platform.
These are the exact magic words one needs to say to get a HUGE discounts from Microsoft.
The concepts of not putting all you eggs in one basket, and one size does not fit all apply here. I'm fairly confident that there is enough interest and use for technology that economies can't support more than one operating system. An each of those operating systems will do some thing well and some things poorly.
Windows, GNU/Linux, & Apple systems each serve a different set of needs, and therefore each will continue to exist as long as they continue to meet the demand. Which, not coincidently, is exactly what the companies listed in the article are doing, responding to a economic demand and opportunity.
The only way you are going to get affordable healthcare for everyone( which means those who can't afford it) to have everyone(meaning those who already can afford it) front a larger percentage of the bill. I'll pass(needless to say I'm in the latter category).
As for a complete conversion like this, lets hold our applause until they've made a SMOOTH transition. The last thing the U.S. needs is to be offline for god knows how long because something went wrong in this transition you want so much.
Universal Healthcare, a pipe dream I wish people would wake up from.
"There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
If they don't want their costumers to move away, they should help their costumers to integrate their products with others instead of expecting them to move to an all-Microsoft environment. They should not let their costumers wait months for patches that are market critical by Microsoft. Who want to do business with people lika that?
From the article:
The government is a (very large) consumer, this (very large) consumer says that is will spend ten billions on mostly Linux based infrastructure. Not surprisingly, the vendors try to bid into this very large order.
I think I'd word that a bit differently. Microsoft can compete and win against any product. The problem form M$ is that Linux isn't a product. How can a large monopoly undermine something that is given away for free? Well... they try.. SCO, investing in Novel. But Linux is a multi-headed beast that any smart kid can ship for free once M$ buys out a vendor. M$ could probably kill Linux in the US with it's influence in congress (software patents, SCO, etc). However, that would only leave the US behind the rest of the world.
I think Linux will force M$ to do something it hasn't had to do for a very long time... make competitive products that are actually worth buying, rather than forcing us to continue to pay for mature technology that isn't worth a dime (like a basic OS and word processor).
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Why is this modded funny? Let's see you make these kind of racist jokes to an african american or a hispanic to their face. You will quickly be beaten to a pulp. Hiding behind the internet makes you pretty bold, huh?...Jerk!
If that is the best response MS would have, well, they would be trully in a no win situation.
In 3 or 4 years down the line comes negotiation time again and the Japanese Government (or any other entity that obtained a big disscount) threatens to go to Linux again.
There is a point where MS can't keep disscounting. THat is a short term fix for their broken bussiness model, they have to fix their corporate culture in a way similar to what IBM had to do in the 90s.
Or perish, as unimaginable as that may sound now.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.