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Microsoft Wins $927 Million Pentagon Contract To Provide Technical Support (petri.com)
Microsoft has secured a massive $927m contract to provide technical support and consultation to the United States Department of Defense. This is the latest in a series of key deals that Microsoft has won with the US military. From a report: The contract comes after the software giant Microsoft secured a deal in February 2016 with the Department of Defense (DoD) to bring Windows 10 to all 4m of its employees within a 12-month timeframe. This was the largest enterprise deal for Microsoft in the company's history. In 2013, Microsoft signed a similar deal to bring Windows 8 to 75pc of all DoD employees.
Doesn't this make it in Microsoft's interest to introduce obscure, random (but ultimately harmless) annoyances into the DoD version of Win10 so they will maintain their tech support contract?
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Sadly there are no real alternatives to Windows. OSX (if you're willing to pay the Apple tax) is terrible in a managed environment, and so is Linux. AD with Office+Exchange is quite unbeatable in terms of convenience. You can cobble together something in OSX/Linux just like you can use an Arduino as a PLC to run a manufacturing plant, but its going to be brittle.
...you know what's cool? A billion dollar Pentagon contract!
Being that it is a Pentagon contract, it will end up costing 10 billion.
"Do you want some fries and an F-35 with that . . . ?"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The DoD not only gets a custom version of Windows, but they also have access to the source code. They aren't going to be worrying about the malware built-in to Windows 10 because it won't be present in their versions. Of course the DoD has their own spyware, which is what the M$ spyware will be replaced with.
I used to do contract work for the DoD at US Air Force bases around the world. Lots of that involved installing said DoD spyware on their systems.
Given the amount of telemetry within Microsoft OS these days, I see this as more of an outsourcing move for that whole 'cause-terrorists-think-of-the-children requirement to help address negative publicity.
See, when the NSA spys on its own citizens and employees, it's viewed as evil and unconstitutional.
But when Microsoft does it, it's viewed as sales and marketing.
Gotta love how that shit works.
... and then have people pay you lots of money to troubleshoot their issues.
Thank you for calling Microsoft Advanced Combat Systems technical support
Please press 1 if you are in a combat situation other wise please hold for the next technician... ...hold music...
beep
Please in put your mission number...
beep boop beep booop beeep boop beep boop beep beeep boop boop beep boop beep
Mission verification complete we will now transfer you to a support technician...
Thank you for calling Microsoft Advanced Combat Systems technical support, may name is nahmeed how may I be helping you?
Look buddy my radar is froze up and I'm dodging a MIG 35 at the moment how about you fix this thing so I can take this sucker out.
I'm sorry to hear about that sir what Microsoft Advanced Combat System system are you calling about? ... its the radar in the f-35.
The radar!!
I understand sir but we have a lot of radar systems do you know the model number?
No!
Ok very good sir I can look that up. please hold ... ...more hold music...
Sir you still there ??
Yes I am I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to shake this MIG.
Thats fine sir, can you tell me what firmware revision of the radar you are using?
What?? I don't know all I know is that its stuck with the same blips thats been on the screen for the last 15 minutes and nothing has changed. Look just log in and fix it.
I would be happy to be helping you sir. Let me know when you have landed the plane and come to a full stop and all weapon systems are in their safe position.
Are you kidding me?? I can't land this plane right now this MIG will make mince meat of me once I stop evasive maneuvers!
Ah I see sir unfortunately I can not help you until the planes is at a full stop and all weapons are safe.
Is there any thing else I can be doing for you?
Yeah how about you.... BOOM*&@!*shzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzsssssssssssss
Sir hello are you there?
Hello sir??
Thank you for calling Microsoft Advanced Combat Systems technical support I hope you found this session helpful please reply to the survey at the end of this call. have a good day
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Nobody knows. I'm a fan of Linux and it has been my primary OS for decades but even I would say that supporting millions of Linux installations would be a nightmare. It used to be that if you knew what you were doing then Linux worked better than Windows on the desktop. Nowadays Linux is terrible for desktop because there is so much broken and poorly written software and drivers. Linux used to be way better 10 years ago.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/c...
Never ceases to be true, at least to me.
... and then have people pay you lots of money to troubleshoot their issues.
There is an old saying in consulting that if you can't be a part of the solution then there is a lot of money to be made in prolonging the problem.
Would you like to play a game?
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
I think it is all about scale and management at that level.
I have no doubt moving a small to medium sized organization from MS to something else is possible.
However when you are talking about 4M deployments across a diverse usergroup you would have to think really hard about that decision.