According to a blog post by Red Hat, Microsoft was given a three year contract, with no public bidding, which Red Hat and 17 other technology groups are appealing. The contract was worth 14 million Swiss Franc (approximately equivalent to £8m or $12m) per year, and was awarded by the Swiss Federal Bureau for Building and Logistics, for "standardized workstations" and the applications and support that go with it.The government agency claimed the decision was made because there was "no sufficient alternative to the Microsoft products", however Red Hat stated that several other Swiss government agencies are using alternatives, provided by Red Hat.
Red Hat produce open-source software, namely Linux operating systems, which are targeted towards the commercial market. The money is made by selling subscriptions, which provide support for their products, amongst other services.
Red Hat is leading a group of 18 technology companies who are "seeking a public bidding process that allows for consideration of the technical and commercial advantages of open source software products". The companies have filed a brief with Swiss Federal Administration Court, and aim to have the contract with Microsoft overturned.
Open-Xchange, one of the other companies offering alternatives, said "We have alternatives to what Microsoft is offering, so at least we should have a chance at the bidding process," according to an article by PC World. "The IT landscape changes so rapidly, it makes sense to have the freedom to change components without lock-in."
Dont bash me if there is a group policy alternative or Microsoft systems center alternative then show me the product instead of bashing me.
There are several. Samba is the most popular AFAIK.
http://www.itworld.com/open-source/61117/a...s-linux-samba-4
It's quite a bit more than just that, check the SAMBA documentation.
You can get group policies running SAMBA3 along with some third party tools, but it's being integrated in SAMBA4.
Also... if someone wants to sign a contract with Microsoft (or any other company), why on Earth should a competitor have a right to complain.
It's like somebody signing a contract with me and my friend taking them to court because they didn't talk to them about the potential of a deal first?!
The £600m (per year) saving was an estimation made by the UK government. It was presented here just to show that there's actually enough incentive to run a bidding process.
A MS executive doing it well.
Red Hat, however, isn't free and once you are already in the mood to spend on an enterprise solution you tend to want the best solution rather than the geekiest one.
Well documented in Microsoft-sponsored studies, that is.
Mission accomplished.
Switching is a hell of a lot more complex than loading up some new software you downloaded off the internet.
And of course if you move into the Linux world you end up having far less choices of third-party software than you do with Windows. I know Linux zealots like to say the reverse however it is only true that Linux has more choices in a very narrow field of software; like window managers and whatnot.
Depends on what people needs to do.
French police needed "little to no training"(sic) when switching to Linux.
Switching is a hell of a lot more complex than loading up some new software you downloaded off the internet.
...
Funny, but a recent report shows that organizations found it was easier than expected to switch to Linux on desktops.
Of course it would, you have pointed it yourself: if they had still finally decided to go with MS, Switzerland would have paid a whole lot less for their current contract.
Microsoft without bid still heavily discounts products for government. we get office 2007 standard for $20 a copy.
Sure, but going through a bid you either get a better product or a better price. Or both.
Exactly!
The customer gains by competitive bids. Even if they stayed with Windows, they likely would have gotten additional concessions from Microsoft.
One would have to be pretty dense to not see that and to support closing of competitive bids.
This is a government we are talking about here....they don't care about design vs cost.
If it's about the GUI then companies should switch to Open Office 3 which looks and behave like the old Offices while Office 2007 has a new ribbon UI.
If it comes to just that then the option is clear: nipples.
As userfriendly and intuitive as an interface can possibly get.
lol yeah this stuff is always going to happen its what makes the world go round.
I wonder if I will be able to hear the judge's laughter from over here as this gets thrown out of court for having absoltely no legal ground whatsoever.
I wonder if I will be able to hear the judge's laughter from over here as this gets thrown out of court for having absoltely no legal ground whatsoever.
C_Guy it is illegal in most countries not to bid on government contracts. (as far as I know) And you can't "lose" if you were never "playing".
I wonder if I will be able to hear the judge's laughter from over here as this gets thrown out of court for having absoltely no legal ground whatsoever.
C_Guy it is illegal in most countries not to bid on government contracts. (as far as I know) And you can't "lose" if you were never "playing".
But has anyone quoted sweedish law to show if it is legal or illegal?
I'm not biased by any means... I use Linux quite a lot, usually just as much as Windows, and I do enjoy it very much. But the fact here is that the agency and its employees may have a preference as to what OS they'd like to use on their computers. I don't see a problem with that.
The question is: would the cost of training all employees + Red Hat's (or any other company) licenses/support come cheaper than MS licenses/support?
The answer: you can guess, but since they didn't run a bid there's no way to know.
Anyway bear in mind that training costs are a one time expense, as opposed to licenses and support contracts. Switching platforms is always likely to be more expensive in the short term, but you can get that investment returned latter.
I'm not saying that this would be the case here, it might or might not, just that training costs are not a show stopper.
100 people paying $120000/year in taxes?
Going by the factual data (or more exactly, lack of thereof) we could also say training people to use Linux would probably cost way less.
Red Hat is already being used extensively in other government agencies in Switzerland, maybe someone could go and ask
Going by the factual data (or more exactly, lack of thereof) we could also say training people to use Linux would probably cost way less.
Red Hat is already being used extensively in other government agencies in Switzerland, maybe someone could go and ask
typo- meant to be 1000 (though that might have been obvious)
Going by the factual data (or more exactly, lack of thereof) we could also say training people to use Linux would probably cost way less.
Red Hat is already being used extensively in other government agencies in Switzerland, maybe someone could go and ask
typo- meant to be 1000 (though that might have been obvious)
That's still $12k per year.
Considering the average Swiss household income is about $8k that would be one hell of an income tax.
*edit: I've just found a different source giving different numbers for household income :-/ never mind.
Last edited by ichi on 28 May 2009 - 12:41
Taxes from 100 people
OMG and i thought canadian was the most taxed people on hear.
12 000 000 / 100 = 120 000 / 3 years = 40 000 taxes a year WOW just WOW
I live in Quebec which is one of the most taxed place onm hearth and i pay around 5 000-6 000$ of taxes a year at most even if i have a very good salary.
i hate how all these compnies always want to complain about MS.
MS is the top dog for a reason, they get **** done despite all the bugs,virus and and whatever else apple/linux think is wrong with MS.
i hate how all these compnies always want to complain about MS.
MS is the top dog for a reason, they get **** done despite all the bugs,virus and and whatever else apple/linux think is wrong with MS.
(sigh)
Please read and understand the article.
The complaint is against what Switzerland did. Not Microsoft.
How about holding a bid and choosing the best offer?
What's wrong with trying to get the most value out of taxpayers' money?
I understand MS obviously prefers not going through a bid and getting the contract right away, but what's in that for everyone else supporting non-bid contracts?
Companies ALWAYS retrain anyway. We got an half day trainning for going from Outlook 2000 to Outlook 2003 here ....
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