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Posted on 10/01/2005 12:59:08 PM PDT by N3WBI3
The NSW Office of State Revenue (OSR) is taking a tough stance against Microsoft's decision to make an enterprise edition of Windows Vista only available to companies that have signed on to its Software Assurance program. The tax collection agency has declared it would rather switch desktop operating systems than lock itself into Microsoft's licensing regime.
Delivering a presentation at the South East Asian Regional Computer Confederation (SEARCC 05) in Sydney yesterday, OSR chief information officer Mike Kennedy and the agency's manager of client services Pravash Babhoota confirmed they would start scoping for a move to a Linux desktop within six months.
The OSR collects taxes, levies and duty for the NSW government and is the second biggest revenue authority in Australia after the Australian Taxation Office. Answering directly to the NSW Treasury, OSR has about 600 staff, 200 of which it recruited during the past year.
Babhoota said the agency had already successfully bedded down open source on its back-end, running its Oracle 9i and 10g core databases and assorted other transactional applications over Citrix on Dell-based clusters and had guarantees of open source support from key enterprise applications vendors.
While the back-end migration consisted of moving off heavier Unix- and Solaris-based operating systems running on Sun hardware, Babhoota said the emergence of a new version of Microsoft Windows, Office and their commensurate licensing would naturally lead his IT shop to consider consolidating its applications on open source.
"At this stage the benefits have been in delivering [savings through] consolidation and thin clients. In a few more months the focus will shift to replacing Office," Babhoota said.
Asked whether Microsoft's Software Assurance subscription licensing regime - under which volume users pay an annual fee for support, patches and upgrades - was influencing any potential shift on desktops, Babhoota said previous upgrade offers from Microsoft had provided a less than compelling economic case to his organization.
In particular, he said early offers to upgrade from NT to XP under Software Assurance had not provided sufficient value in their initial stages, noting the waiting game had paid off because ultimately prices dropped while stability, functionality and support increased.
"As soon as support ends for XP, we will look at moving to Linux [desktops]," Babhoota said, adding the back-end switch to open source had cost 17 percent of what a proprietary upgrade had been costed at, with the agency doubling the amount of business it processed in the same 12-month period.
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I'm starting to feel the same way. Now excuse me while I shutdown XP and reboot into Mandriva LE 2005.
... I hate this "Software Assurance" idea and if my choices were SA or Linux, I'd probably choose Linux. I think this is a bad idea of Microsoft's part. This is going to hurt them, especially in samaller companies who won't like the idea of being locked in.
Depends on what the enterprise version gives them. If there's a version of windows that doesn't require an EA and it's better than linux for the customer to use...then they'll use that. Now if the non-EA version of Vista is like Windows XP HOME then yes, it will hurt.
Kind of like high end system of Server. If you don't run it in a cluster or use it for other certain functions/scenarios there's no real need to have it.
However, I actually like the EA...it's a lot cheaper than being individual CALs and depending on which type of EA you sign you can actually "Own" the licenses at the end and not have to renew. So if M$ doesn't have anything new coming out in the next couple years when your EA runs up, you can not renew and keep all the licenses you currently have. Now if you go the less expensive route you can rent your software, but then you're locked in, but last time I looked you can save quite a bit by leasing vs. buying. But that's the case in most any lease/own scenario.
XP Home is crap ... freezes for no reason. I think XP Professional is a great OS, though.
Now if you go the less expensive route you can rent your software, but then you're locked in, but last time I looked you can save quite a bit by leasing vs. buying. But that's the case in most any lease/own scenario.
Maybe, maybe not. Like I said, I'm glad I have the MSDN Subscription (for free) because I refuse to play this game with MS. This is going to force a lot of people to make a choice between MS or some other software.
One thing I noticed ... the "longhorn" beta versions are available in MSDN, but the "Vista" model currently is not. I hope they don't think they are going to charge $4000+ for an MSDN and then charge additional for the SA agreements.
What I fail to understand is Microsoft's combating of an open system by becoming more closed and controlling.
You don't fight the other guy using a strategy that plays to his greatest strength and exposes your greatest weakness.
All they have to do is deliver on the promises they've been churning out since Cairo was announced umpteen years ago.
Then again, judging from the sheer mass of features scratched from Longhorn/Vista/whateverthehelltheywannacallit, they just may be incapable of delivering those promises.
Well, if they want to hasten their decline, who am I to say nay?
MSDN sub is for something completely different. It's not for business to roll out software. As an individual user you can't even buy an EA. Also you may be pirating software and not even know it with MSDN. Many (not all) don't understand the MSDN license and violate it all the time. Once again not saying you are, but just saying it's a common mistake.
OpenOffice.org works great.
You do if you're the villain in a Jean Claude Van Damme movie.
..the back-end switch to open source had cost 17 percent of what a proprietary upgrade had been costed at, with the agency doubling the amount of business it processed in the same 12-month period.
Paging Doctor Gates, Doctor Didio, Doctor O'Gara... emergency...
Another foreign government switching away from software created and sold in the US. Yet, you celebrate.
Let them keep on doing what they're doing.
The more and more customers they alienate the more of a threat linux becomes.
Linux has already taken Apple's spot at #2 for desktop OS, what else does MS want?
I missed which distribution they were switching to.
If they go Novell or Red Hat then what's the big deal?
Besides, consumers come first. As a pro-capitalist I'd be a hypocrit to not keep this ideal close. Yes, they may very well move off of a US made product. It's their choice to make.
And given MS's flagrant attitude towards it's customers is further reason for me to even be less in a hurry to blame the customer.......(even a government customer)
They don't deserve those customers.
They don't have to pay a dime for the latest Suse from Novell, they can download as many copies as they want, for free.
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/downloads/suse_linux/
Obviously their choice, and no wonder what it is.
Which is why that model will eventually suffer, once that software matures enough that no one is buying support, at all. They're charging an arm and a leg right now in preparation, with those yearly contracts just to get your patches easily. More groups like CentOS will eventually bring that all crashing down.
People still buy support for Solaris, AIX, and *gasp* Windows. Are these not mature environment?
ah, so in addition to being mentally challenged and a racist, you are also a xenophobe, and a xenophobe towards one of the US's staunchest and most reliable allies??
Ok? And..... what?
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