Sunday, September 4th, 2005, 4:02 am
Massachusetts says Goodbye to Office
Filed under:
Bill Gates arrested in his younger days (photo in public domain)
ECENTLY I came to discover more about the personaility of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, perhaps possessed by the measles. He has become yet another one of the ugly guys in the block, perhaps even topping the man above. He was caught yelling “I’m going to f—ing kill Google” and throwing a chair across his office. Anger management comes to mind.
Given the aggressive behaviour of Microsoft, it was not too surprising when Massachusetts prepared a proposal that will drop Office in favour of Open Source solutions. I wish them to best of luck in their future endeavours, which are sure to insire the remainder of the country over the long term.
Massachusetts is preparing to deliver another challenge to Microsoft’s core PC software business: a directive to force all 50,000 desktop computers used by state employees to be stripped of Microsoft’s Office, the suite of applications used on an estimated 95 per cent of PCs the world over. Instead, they would be required to run an open-source version, such as OpenOffice or StarOffice – software produced by volunteer programmers and distributed free of charge.
