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Mano a Mano with Microsoft: Update
,----[ Quote ]
| That's not because either I or Microsoft chickened out, but a consequence of
| the fact that the CIO of Newham, Richard Steel, for whose benefit the meeting
| was being held, has rather suddenly and unexpectedly announced that he is
| retiring. In the wake of this news, I contacted Microsoft, and we agreed that
| there was little point holding the meeting as originally planned.
`----
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/mano-mano-microsoft-update
Great news! But... Microsoft escaped a meeting where it gets grilled for the
OOXML crimes.
"This is classic Microsoft "embrace, extend, extinguish", except now applied to
standards bodies."
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-07-14-013-35-NW-MS-LL-0001
Recent:
Health Check: Open Source and the UK Government
,----[ Quote ]
| Recently Glyn Moody and Richard Steel, who is both the president of SocITM
| (the Society of local government IT Managers) and CIO of the London Borough
| of Newham, had a minor spat across their respective blogs at ComputerWorld,
| provoked by Steel's response to to the UK government's newly announced policy
| for the adoption and promotion of open source - Open Source, Open Standards
| and Re–Use: Government Action Plan. It was a bit like listening to Richard
| Stallman talking to a patent official.
|
| [...]
|
| His response is both a statement of defiance and an unconscious admission of
| the lack of adventure that characterises public sector procurement policy,
| and suggests that, irrespective of government policy and the stated policy of
| all the main political parties, open source is not an option that will
| receive a balanced assessment from IT managers in local government.
|
| The persistent failure of the public sector to take advantage of open source
| is less the fault of the politicians and policy makers, who usually take the
| blame, than it is the fault of those who are paid to put the policy into
| practice.
`----
http://www.h-online.com/open/Health-Check-Open-Source-and-the-UK-Government--/features/112884
Microsoft Signs MoU with Arab Business Angels Network to Promote
Entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa Region
,----[ Quote ]
| Furthering its commitment to foster economic growth in the region,
| Microsoft... today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
| with Arab Business Angels Network (ABAN) spanning the Middle East and North
| Africa region.
`----
http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidZAWYA20080622133327/secIndustries/pagTelecoms%20&%20IT
War of words breaks out over Microsoft MOU
,----[ Quote ]
| The salutary lesson to draw from our dealings, Richard, is not whether you
| can trust the press. It is rather a lesson in managing expectations, a
| process every CIO should know well.
|
| The expectations you invested in your 2004 deal with Microsoft, as enshrined
| in the memorandum of understanding, were also unrealistic.
|
| To recap, the original MOU said the use of Microsoft software would "improve
| Common Performance Assessment results and Star Ratings" measured by the Audit
| Commission.
|
| The analysis presented in the INQUIRER on Friday demonstrated that this
| expectation had not been met.
|
| When we asked you about this on Friday you told us there was a new MOU. Now
| you accuse us of twisting your words.
|
| How would you prefer to describe what happened to the original agreement? If
| it has not been scrapped, perhaps it has been decommissioned, recycled, sold
| on eBay?
|
| Having been told you had drawn up a second MOU with Microsoft, we were
| clearly interested to learn what new terms you had agreed in the public
| interest. You said it was confidential. But the first MOU was deemed fit for
| publication under FOI rules.
|
| You also said the first MOU was only ever a three year deal. But the document
| was accepted by a Council vote as part of a 10-year deal.
|
| Now four years since you signed the original agreement it is proper for us to
| ask how well the public money you are giving Microsoft is spent.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/23/scrapped-microsoft-mou
BBC should not pay for fibre, Ofcom tells MPs
,----[ Quote ]
| The dog and pony show over whether the BBC should contribute to distribution
| costs for iPlayer rolled into Westminster yesterday, with Ofcom chief
| executive Ed Richards telling MPs he doesn't believe forcing Auntie to cough
| up for a fibre network is the best plan.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/23/ofcom_richards_select_committee/
Newham has a cow over Microsoft MOU
,----[ Quote
| However, Newham has supplied the INQUIRER with internal studies that it says
| do demonstrate that its decision to commit to Microsoft was justified. The
| studies were performed by Socitm, a private public sector consulting firm of
| which Newham COI Steele is a vice president. the INQUIRER will report on
| these findings in due course.
|
| Meanwhile, the original MOU is enlightening. As well as claiming the deal
| would enable Newham to achieve high rankings in Audit Commission assessments,
| it committed Newham to moving all "competitive technology" to Microsoft,
| regardless of the feasibility of such a move.
|
| It also required Steele to promote Microsoft software.
|
| See attached file: Memorandum of Understanding.doc
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/21/microsoft-newham-council-goes
London council dumps Microsoft, may go open source instead
,----[ Quote ]
| NEWHAM LONDON Borough Council has scrapped the controversial 10-year
| Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) it signed with Microsoft in 2004 and drawn
| up a new agreement with a new set of deliverables.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/18/microsoft-flagship-flounders
Related:
Government faces crunch on Microsoft mega-deal
,----[ Quote ]
| Rumour has it that Microsoft hasn't been feeling appreciated in the public
| sector, thinking its customers don't know what a good deal they've been
| getting since the MOU was first negotiated in 2002. BECTA, the procurement
| quango for the education sector, has recommended schools don't upgrade to
| Microsoft Vista and Office 2007.
|
| [...]
|
| "There's a big anti-Microsoft lobby growing on the green agenda" he said,
| especially among local councils who were beginning to realise that PC's were
| power hungry and expensive to maintain. They were taking interest in
| think-client computers instead.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/15/uk-gov-faces-crunch-microsoft
UK: Major cost reduction result of Bristol's switch to Open Standards
,----[ Quote ]
| Bristol City Council's switch to StarOffice in 2005 has led to a major
| reduction of IT costs, says Gavin Beckett, the council's ICT Strategy
| manager.
|
| StarOffice is Sun Microsystems' proprietary suite of office applications,
| which is based on the Open Source OpenOffice. In 2006 Bristol took the
| further step of adopting the ISO-approved Open Document Format (ODF).
|
| Speaking at a conference on ODF in the Netherlands last month, Beckett said
| that implementing StarOffice for 5,500 desktops in Bristol saved 1.1 million
| GBP (1.4 million euro) in comparison to the total cost of implementing
| Microsoft Office. "The licences for StarOffice cost us 186,000 GBP (243,000
| euro), in comparison to 1.4 million GBP (1.8 million euro) for MS Office."
|
| These major savings were offset slightly by extra time needed for
| implementing StarOffice. Implementation cost the city council 484,000 GBP
| (632,000 euro), double the estimate for MS Office. This was due to document
| conversion and training, said the IT Strategy manager. Explaining and
| troubleshooting the new office applications took several months more than
| planned.
`----
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7409
Lawmaker blasts U.K. government on Microsoft policy
,----[ Quote ]
| "A member of Parliament of the United Kingdom has launched a stinging
| attack on the U.K. government's IT strategy, saying that it has given
| Microsoft too much control.
|
| John Pugh, who is a member of Parliament, or MP, for Southport and a
| member of the Public Accounts Committee, was speaking in an
| adjournment debate on Tuesday that he had called. The aim of the
| debate, he said, was to explore the alternatives to using Microsoft
| software, including open source."
|
| [...]
`----
http://www.news.com/Lawmaker-blasts-U.K.-government-on-Microsoft-policy/2100-1012_3-6212721.html
http://tinyurl.com/2ashm2
Interview with Richard M. Stallman
,----[ Quote ]
| It is important to know this because we will always face pressure, from those
| who are powerful and would like to take away our freedom, to surrender our
| freedom—and they frequently offer us something attractive in exchange. For
| instance, B’liar wanted to abolish the Rights of Englishmen, and to serve his
| American master, Bush, faithfully; so he offered Britons “protection” from
| this or that, plus the imagined idea that he influences his master on their
| behalf through the “special relationship”.
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
`----
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/interview_with_richard_stallman
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