[ale] OT-Microsoft loses showdown in Houston

[Joe]

This is interesting...

Cheers,

-- Joe Knapka

Dave W <question.everythingUCEWILLBEIGNORED at verizon.net> writes:

> http://tinyurl.com/4r39
> 
> By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY
> 
> HOUSTON — The people who run this city recently heard a familiar pitch from 
> Microsoft: Sign up for a multiyear, $12 million software licensing plan or 
> face an audit exposing the city's use of software it hadn't paid for.
> Microsoft demonstrates new projects and upgrades as it tries to boost 
> sales.
> 
> 
> Microsoft warned that the city could be slapped with stiff fines for using 
> any Microsoft software for which it could not produce receipts.
> 
> Scores of other businesses and public agencies, facing a similar dilemma, 
> have agreed to the new licensing deals — a linchpin of Microsoft's growth 
> strategy.
> 
> Not Houston.
> 
> The nation's fourth-largest city rebuffed the offer and has embraced an 
> obscure competitor called SimDesk. SimDesk delivers software over the 
> Internet at a fraction of the cost of Microsoft's Office, a software suite 
> used on 94% of America's office personal computers. Houston is giving 
> SimDesk to tens of thousands of residents and businesses, free. And it has 
> begun using SimDesk as an Office substitute on at least half the city's 
> 13,000 PCs. 
> 
> <more at page location>
> 
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-- 
  "I'd rather chew my leg off than maintain Java code, which
   sucks, 'cause I have a lot of Java code to maintain and
   the leg surgery is starting to get expensive." - Me
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