Details of Linux-in-Munich Deal Revealed

An anonymous reader writes "USA Today is running a piece about the lengths which Microsoft went to in order not to lose the government of Munich's account to a Linux-based proposal from SuSE. Interesting to see how these types of contracts are structured, and just what Microsoft is willing to give up to prevent losing to Linux."

from the guys who hit bill in the face with a pie

[gfody]

goes to show how much they hate microsoft in germany

understatement

[cruppel]

David Burger says "...I find it ironic that Microsoft could actually be trying to be seen as if it were being dealt with unfairly."

weird so do I

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Recent news...

[skidrowe]

Bill Gates was seen curled up in the fetal position after learning the marketshare held by Microsoft would drop from 90% to 89%

"ooh...can't lose marketshare...can't lose marke-...gaahh!!"

Well, just goes to show...

[daeley]

I guess Ballmer's "Ich bin ein Bavarian Creme Pie" speech didn't go over so good with the Mayor. ;)

Ballmer

[blackmonday]

Well, they actually considered buying from Microsoft until Ballmer showed up doing the monkey dance [msboycott.com].

Re:Mozilla?

[stratjakt]

How about: A web browser that thinks its an irc client, email reader, etc, etc and the kitchen sink too.

Or: A completely bloated pile of horse shit.

The only feature I want from a browser is rendering pages correctly.

Seen in Munich

[teamhasnoi]

Steve Balmer, head in hands, sitting on street corner rocking back and forth whimpering, "Delvelopers...*sniff*..Developers...*choke*... DEVELOOOOPERRRRRSSss!!!...*weep*

Hey Steve, where's your Moses now??

Quote from the article

[jeffy210]

Ballmer cast open-source software as having 'no center of gravity'

What it means is "We don't know where to attack, because we can't buy them out"

Re:Well, just goes to show...

[Rude Turnip]

The irony is that the above phrase translates from German to "I am John F. Kennedy" in English.

Re:My views on C++

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to ++ the moderator who marked you funny.

Steve Ballmer, Visionary, Dead on June 4

[ackthpt]

Rumors continue to circulate around Redmond, Washington, home of Steve Ballmer's employer Microsoft, that he died on June 4th after returning from Munich, Germany, of a massive FUD failure. Mr. Ballmer had tavelled to the technology hub of Germany in order to prop up sagging preceptions of product value, armed with a full portfolio of buzzwords and authorized to offer significant concessions in order to prevent loss of an important sale and save face in a key facet of the European Market. Drenched with sweat and mumbling explitives, Mr. Ballmer emerged from a company plane and collapsed. A cumpled note in his hand, addressed to Microsoft Chairman, William Gates III, contained only one word, "Rosebud"

More details to follow...

I love this story

[Linux_ho]

As many of you know, at the recent O'Reilly Open Source convention, Microsoft provided sack lunches to attendees for free. The Munich article reminds me of one guy's comment: "They should get used to us eating their lunch."

Re:Well, just goes to show...

[rampant mac]

"I guess Ballmer's "Ich bin ein Bavarian Creme Pie" speech didn't go over so good with the Mayor."

Actually, if it was Ballmer giving the speech I'm sure it would've been more like:

"Entwickler, Entwickler, Entwickler, Entwickler! Aaaaiiiieeeee, wooooooooo!"

Re:from the guys who hit bill in the face with a p

[i8urtaco]

so I don't hate Microsoft because they're greedy, manipulative and all-out evil? I hate them because I'm German? I'll be a sonovabitch.

Re:Ballmer

[greysky]

I can just see it now:

Blamer (Bathed in sweat and stomping arround the room): "Berliners! Berliners! Berliners! Berliners! Berliners! Berliners! Berliners! Berliners! Berliners!"

Ude (looking quite confused): "For God's sake, someone get this freak a doughnut!"

Re:Wasen't Cost

[realdpk]

First, there was UNIX. Then, came UN*X. I saw just yesterday, *n*x. And now, *n**. At this rate, in the next 5 minutes, someone will use **** to mean "any unix or unix clone", and someone else will mistake it for them saying "shit".

Re:Hmm....

[Darth]

i smell a new reality tv show....

quick, someone call Fox.

we could call it "Contract Survivor" or something.

Microsoft won the homeland security contract

[PhrackCreak]

In an opposing decision, microsoft won [reuters.com] the contract to suppply server and client software to the department of homeland security here in the US.

Re:Linux competitiveness.

[dJCL]

Goes well with the bill quote "We will never have a price lower than Linux"... Only to be the low bidder. I found that really funny myself.

Other costs

[El]

Costs estimates failed to take into consideration the costs in lost productivity due to having solitaire installed on every desktop! Yep, my corporate installed Windows XP box has the productivity enhancing suite of FreeCell, Hearts, Solitaire, Pinball, Internet Backgammon, etc. What that hell were they thinking when they decided to give games to every employee?

Re:But the next quote is even better

[BigRedFish]

My fave quote is this one:

Ballmer ... suggested IBM adds an illusion of support and accountability to Linux.

I laugh out loud. IBM adds an Illusion of support? Gimme a break. IBM's support has, in my experience, been pretty darn good. Maybe we got a green tech from time to time, but at least they showed up and I could tell my boss IBM was on it. Management will usually take that for an answer.

What does Microsoft contribute in that arena? A fingerpointing game with the OEM?

I distincly remember waiting two years and five service packs just to get NT4's DHCP server fixed(*). Who do I hold accountable for the decision that integrating IE4 into the server(!) so I could view my server's desktop 'as a web page' (whatever that means) was more important than functional DHCP? Will they reimburse my employer for the *nix box they eventually bought to do DHCP, after having been promised that functionality in Windows at time of purchase? How about me, for my OT and aggravation, and having to explain to unreceptive Management that yes, the product they blew their budget on (against my recommendation) was defective and there was nothing I could do to fix it until MS patched it, which they were apparently in no hurry to do, so they had to spend more money to get what they paid for the first time?

At least I had the good sense to quit the next year when they shoved Outlook/Exchange Server down my throat. I hear my replacement spent a lot of nights and weekends cleaning up the worms and script attacks that I warned them were inevitable. Who at MS is 'accountable' for deciding that auto-executing attachments as SYSTEM was a good idea?

And people wonder why we hate Microsoft so much. After over 15 years working with (more like cleaning up after) their products, nothing triggers FUD in me like 'New from Microsoft.' Where'd I learn that reaction? Redmond taught me, the hard way.

(*) Well, DHCP did work as far as distributing IP leases from a block, probably looked just fine at the trade show demos. Problem was, once the block was exhausted and it wrapped around to the beginning again, it reassigned addresses without checking to see if they were still leased, knocking both users off the network and generating two support calls and two workstation reboots each time it happened. If you had to reboot the server for some reason (which in Windows, could be any minor change to anything), it started at the beginning of the list again, and every client on the network would need to be rebooted before the network would stabilize. MS support's answer: Don't use DHCP, use static IPs. They even suggested using Excel to track the assignments - yeah, I'm going to buy another MS product to replace the one I already bought that doesn't work. 'Illusion of support,' indeed!

Sure, Balmer's not exactly Kate Moss...

[sn00ker]

but 600 pounds? Sheesh, that's just being mean.

Microsoft , Linux, innovation

[bagofbeans]

C'mon, Microsoft hardly killed innovation. Both Linux stuff and MS stuff are very innovative, just in different arenas. Linux innovative, IMHO, is largely spent in catch-up for mainstream apps, while MS is trying to dominate think-ahead markets like all internet commercial activity (DRM, P3P, proprietary streaming formats) and home interconnectivity. The problem with MS innovation is that it generally doesn't appear to be ever in the consumers' interest except very short term 'gosh, new feature!'.

No, IANAMSE (I am not a Microsoft employee)!

Re:I love this story

[sniggly]

You'd have to wonder if that food was secure, had no bugs and was free of worms...

rarely mentioned corollary:

[abe ferlman]

"Linux is cheaper if your time is worthless"

Windows is only $100 if your time is worthless. (Otherwise it's much, much, much more.)

Treating Microsoft fairly...

[jkrise]

Most people (Judge Jackson included) get emotional and condemn Microsoft summarily, without giving them credit where due. Here's a little guide, how to treat MS fairly:

1. When throwing an egg, ensure it's a golden egg.
2. Don't say Windoze sucks. Be specific. Say "Windows 95 is fast, but doesn't have USB. Win98 sucks bad, no security. WinNT4 is actually good - no wonder you withdrew support. Win2K supports USB, but breaks a lot of code. Win2K also gives us useless DRM. WinXP Home sucks, and doen't include networking. WinXP PRo sucks bigtime - lots of Spyware, builtin lousy fiewall, builtin DRM enabled CD writing s/w etc..........."
3. Don't say ".Net is complex" Say instead " Please explain .Net, and tell us why your losy mktg team removed the .Net brand from seeral products."

and so on... Be fair to them - they spend $5bn every year for R&D, generate lots of Linux jobs,make more people hate the US by their attitude and behavior, etc. Praise them for all this.

Peace.
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