Texas Senate Proposes a Budget With a No-Vista-Upgrades Rider

CWmike writes "The Texas state Senate yesterday gave preliminary approval to a state budget that includes a provision forbidding government agencies from upgrading to Windows Vista without written consent of the legislature. Sen. Juan Hinojosa, vice chairman of the Finance Committee, proposed the rider because 'of the many reports of problems with Vista ... We are not in any way, shape or form trying to pick on Microsoft, but the problems with this particular [operating] system are known nationwide,' Hinojosa said during a Senate session debating the rider (starting at 4:42 of this RealMedia video stream). 'And the XP operating system is working very well.' A Microsoft spokeswoman said in response, 'We're surprised that the Texas Senate Finance Committee adopted a rider which, in effect, singles out a specific corporation and product for unequal treatment. We hope as the budget continues to go through the process, this language will be removed.'"

Comments

this language will be removed

[sofar]

I'm sure Microsoft can pay to have that done.

Re:this language will be removed

[Anonymous Coward]

Although it would be best if a strong IT department could make that determination on their own, maybe they need some help to make it stick. There is nothing unusual about avoiding Vista. My company is very Micrsoft-centric and even THEY won't touch it. The situation to avoid is where agency X decides on their own to upgrade (especially if they get subsidized freebies), and then agency Y is pressured into upgrading to be compatible with agency X. Sooner or later, some critical piece of software refuses to run on Vista and the brown stuff hits the fan.

There are probably a few state agencies that are either exempt (or pretend to be exempt) from the state IT dept. And they probably need more guidance than they are willing to admit. For all we know, it may have been the IT department that asked the legislature for help.

My guess is that MS can get this language removed, but they will have to provide all kinds of freebies. The best outcome would be to leave the language intact and bag Vista. Second best would be getting all the upgrades for free. From the legislative point of view, a win/win situation.

Re:ROFL; but stupid

[belmolis]

But are you sure that in Texas such decisions are made by competant IT professionals? I wouldn't be surprised if: (a) decisions about software purchases are made separately for different parts of the state government; (b) in at least some of them people who aren't all that savvy make the decisions. It is also possible that even the IT pros are heavily invested in Microsoft and do pretty much what Microsoft says to do. So this may not be an instance of ridiculous micromanagement.

Re:Oy

[gadlaw]

Yeah well, legislatures don't know anything about highway construction or job creation or stem cell research but they still seem to be able to 'represent' the people that elected them and vote for things by and large that numbers of people support and would like to see addressed by the legislature. They don't have to be 'IT' people to pass a law. Hasn't stopped them before, that argument won't stop them anytime in the future.

Re:Not at all

[JackieBrown]

Yes, because only Republicans can be bribed.

Just turn a blind eye to the neo-libs that defened Fannie Mae and AIG until the companies were sufficently drained not to pay them anymore.