[ale] MS vs. Linux in Munich

[Transam]

On Wed, Jul 16, 2003 at 08:10:36PM -0400, Greg wrote:
> Wasn't it Suse (a German based company) that won the award ?  Given the
> recent strain in relations between Europe and the US over Iraq, as well as
> the US losing the trade case, I wonder if there is more here than just
> money.  I seem to recall the EU taking the US to court (and winning all of
> the appeals) over a trade case.  Apparently we gave several companies enough
> tax breaks to qualify them as being government supported (Boeing and MS were
> the only 2 that I recall) and hence they had an unfair advantage in Europe
> over EU companies.  And we know how the EU feels over subsidies to favorite
> industries.

I'm sure the SuSE being German vs. M$ being not was a factor.
However, the stated reason was no significant recurring costs.
M$ forces people to upgrade -- usually every 3-4 years but they "kindly"
offered to only force Munich to upgrade every 6 years for a substantial
cost.

With Linux one generally does not need to and when they do, the cost can
be quite small due to most of the software being open source.

> Yeah, Billy - boy, feel the burn.

> Greg
Bob

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ale-admin at ale.org [mailto:ale-admin at ale.org]On Behalf Of Jonathan
> > Rickman
> > Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2003 6:48 PM
> > To: ale at ale.org
> > Subject: Re: [ale] MS vs. Linux in Munich


> > On Wednesday 16 July 2003 18:37, Bob Toxen wrote:
> > > SuSE Linux competed against Microsoft Windows to provide upgrades
> > > for 14,000 Windows desktop systems for the city of Munich, Germany.
> > > Linux won.  The city won too.

> > The beauty of all this is that by the time all was said and done, the
> > Linux solution was significantly more expensive than the MS solution in
> > terms of up front costs. The city picked Linux anyway. I can't wait to
> > hear the MS spin doctors stammering through an explanation for that.

> > --
> > Jonathan Rickman
> > X Corps Security
> > http://www.xcorps.net
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