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Munich Struggling with Linux Transition? 566

rune2 writes "The Toronto Star has an article up that mentions that Steve Ballmer is gloating about how the Munich transition to Linux and Open Source software isn't going too well." Even if the transition is going poorly, what about when Munich is finally set? Funny how there's no mention of all the future costs of licenses they've already saved themselves from, yet there's a nice plug for the next version of Windows. Last time I checked, Windows' upgrades from one version to the next were not free by any definition.
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Munich Struggling with Linux Transition?

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:09PM (#8416924)
    At least they didn't waste too much money buying software.
    • There's another (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Alan Partridge ( 516639 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:17PM (#8416977) Journal
      They're no longer struggling with Windows, like 99% of the world's organisations.

      And they'll be pissing themselves laughing next time a big virus hits.
      • Re:There's another (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gilesjuk ( 604902 ) <giles@jones.zen@co@uk> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @02:48PM (#8417845)
        There was a nice response to Ballmer's laughter on another site carrying this news. It mentioned that this shows that Microsoft has a tight grip on the desktop world. It shows that many desktop users are using Windows on the basis that Microsoft has made it hard for them to run anything else. Therefore Ballmer is laughing because he realises Microsoft's monopolistic doings are paying off.
      • by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @03:04PM (#8417957)

        It occurred to me recently, after having lost another file to a PC lockup, that the enormous costs of transisioning from manual business machines to PCs (over the past twenty years) are not reflected in MS's profits. The costs of learning all this new technology and the costs of all those lost files and other inefficiencies have been absorbed by the users. The economic gains have been split by the organizations that have bought PCs and Microsoft.
        With Linux the costs are more equally distributed and more available for realistic analysis. What that means is that Microsoft is at its peak now in terms of being rich, fat, and happy. The period of increasing returns for them are over and that of diminishing returns on investment have begun. Mr. Balmer shouldn't gloat (like saying the sun shouldn't shine) over the transision costs of changing operating systems because (one) the costs were originally greater to transision from manual machines to PCs but Microsoft didn't pay those costs. And (two) each movement of a large organization from Windows to Linux is cheaper as the unforseen problems and their solutions get shared by the Linux community.

        In their defense, Windows is a lot easier to use than Linux and Windows is not dominated by the computer geek mentality that continues to cripple Linux. Windows is dominated by the 'make Microsoft rich by providing useful tools that increase worker productivity' mentality. Since MS has been able to provide their solutions so far at a cost that is much less than the value of productivity gains of their product, they have won spectactularly over all their competitors. But that will change and is changing with every new Linux inplementation.

        These guys in Redmond shouldn't gloat, it's makes them look 'white trash' and insults their customers who are not caught up in this American "business is a football game" mentality.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:22PM (#8417002)
      It seems that the main problem in Munich is with the knowledgebase of the integrators. The equivalent of this problem would selecting the wrong Microsoft Partner to do your rollout.

      I would imagine that as experience with Linux grows this problem will be easier to minimize.

      • by dfung ( 68701 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:53PM (#8417502)
        I agree with this completely.

        I personally think the overall complexity of the open source path is probably slightly higher than Windows these days, but on this scale of operation probably not radically different. Pick the wrong Windows integrator (strong on client or server side but not both) and it will be a painful migration.

        One problem that I do see is that in strategic deals like this one, Microsoft has an advantage in that the corporation can "fix" a bad integrator choice by flooding the site with the money and knowledge needed to make this work. A big IT consultant can try to do the same thing, but that may require a big internal investment on their part - I'm not sure whether going back to a SUSe or RedHat with problems could create the same effect.

        Of course, that's what MS would argue that their value-add is, and I don't know that I would completely disagree. I'm sure they're loading MS commandos into the Microsoft Air Force troop carriers in Redmond, waiting for Munich to ask for help.
    • by in7ane ( 678796 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:23PM (#8417008)
      Linux needs to offer more than just lower costs to successfully compete (I would probably point to the lower costs last - it's not like it's a good idea to run your systems on something just because it's cheap). So instead of taking how much they've saved and will save on future licenses it would probably be more beneficial to look at what the problems are and how they can be solved. Not least because similar problems are likely to arise in other organizations switching to Linux.
      • by Wellspring ( 111524 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:47PM (#8417153)
        Exactly.

        The thing is, the first priority is the value that Linux is providing Munich. Security and stability are big points in Linux's favor. Customization should be another. If we can't offer compelling value, people will smile, nod, say "good for you guys, I'm rooting for you" -- and then plunk down money for the product that fits their needs.

        We can't as a community wish away these transaction costs of switching. The whole point Ballmer is making when he highlights stories like these is that Open Source is NOT free.

        You need expertise in-house, custom development to meet your needs, tech support, administration, management. All these things are expensive. If Linux is to win, it needs to prove that it isn't just hiding its costs.

        I'd like to see the community really engage the guys in Munich to ascertain 1. what the problems have been 2. what we can do (new software, utilities, companies, services) to alleviate these transition pains.

        That's what MS does with their customers. If we're to really challenge them, we need to be even more responsive and useful. We have the advantage, but that doesn't mean we're using it.
        • by Casualposter ( 572489 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:17PM (#8417306) Journal
          It is telling that Ballmer is gloating over the difficulties of a transition to Linux instead of gloating over stomping the Linux community into the ground with better products and services. The fact is that they are having trouble BUT they are still transitioning.

          Change is always costly, Linux transitions have all of the troubles that other software transitions have without the high cost of each liscence.

          I agree completely with the proposition that we must strive to provide software support for Linux as the primary focus of our community efforts. The code is free, the support is where we have the opportunity to add value and create wealth.
      • by danila ( 69889 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @02:13PM (#8417597) Homepage
        It is often repeated on Slashdot that benefits of Linux other than low costs should somehow more important to businesses and other organisations. But why? Simply because in the past cheap products were usually of lower quality? But that is no longer true with information-based products with low marginal costs (cost of duplicating). And you also forget that decreasing costs seems to be the most popular way to achieve competitive advantage. And it surely is the simpliest one.

        With all the outsourcing going on in the US, companies seem to be determined to decrease the costs as much as possible. Why then do you want to make the emphasis on how Linux better solves the organisation's problems? Haven't you read the recent article about technical support [slashdot.org]? Companies do not want the best, they want the cheapest. Linux (BSD) is the cheapest, so why not promote it as such. If you don't like the word "cheap", say that Linux will allow to lower the costs. After all, multimillion dollar ERP systems do the same - they decrease costs. Teleconferencing systems decrease the costs. VoIP systems decrease the costs. I.e. they are cheaper. So is Linux, don't feel ashamed of that.
  • Nice plug? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 26199 ( 577806 ) * on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:10PM (#8416927) Homepage

    They spend quite a while discussing the problems Windows has with security, including viruses... how is that a nice plug?

    The article seems pretty balanced to me, although it does gloss over one or two points (Munich hadn't already 'made up their mind' when Microsoft made a cheaper offer).

    • Re:Nice plug? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by slipgun ( 316092 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:22PM (#8417003)
      They spend quite a while discussing the problems Windows has with security, including viruses... how is that a nice plug?

      This is Slashdot - what many others would call fair and reasonable is considered hopelessly biased towards Microsoft by many (not all) people here.
    • Re:Nice plug? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by KingOfBLASH ( 620432 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:34PM (#8417080) Journal
      Ballmer claimed linux is more expensive then windows. To people who don't know why, it would seem Windows is a better idea, especially with all of the new and improved security features Mircosoft is being forced to put in place thanks to the competition of Linux.
      • Re:Nice plug? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Endive4Ever ( 742304 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:55PM (#8417193)
        thanks to the competition of Linux.

        This point can't be emphasized enough. Microsoft is an 'alpha' company that is hyper competetive. They needed Netscape to egg them into making Internet Explorer as good as it now is. They need Linux to egg them on as well. And Microsoft's stuff since 'the rise of Linux' has been vastly superior. Honestly, they were mired in NT 4.0 service packs and pasted-onto-16-bit 'Millenium Editions' before.

        This can be considered good or bad by different people. For the customer, it is pretty good.
      • Re:Nice plug? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:28PM (#8417358)
        This is management-speak that uses people's ignorance. "More" is comparative. "More expensive" THAN what? Most English speakers seem to have forgotten that comparatives are usually (always?) followed by "than ..." - perhaps because they listen to so many crappy commercials that use "more" without any comparison. See what happens when language is used imprecisely - leaders use it to keep the population confused.

        So, Mr. Ballmer, "more expensive" than what? Than keeping their older MSWindows systems? Than was originally budgetted for the transition? Than gold-plating all the computer cases?
    • Re:Nice plug? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gnu-generation-one ( 717590 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:35PM (#8417399) Homepage
      14000 computers? Crap, can you imagine setting up that many copies of any OS? (I know, there're tools for doing that, still sounds like a big task though) Do you end up mirroring a disk 13000 times only to discover that you forgot to put kcalc on, or that the company intranet in the bookmarks list had changed?

      According to the article, the only person saying that Linux is more costly is Steve Ballmer, so it's not a statement being made by Munich government itself.

      The article seems to be equally harsh and generous with microsoft, first talking about the cost of viruses, but then taking at face value some statements about how they're going to improve security.

      "The next step is to make the Windows XP operating system less vulnerable to malicious attacks." says His Billness.

      What are we, 3 or 4 major versions into the WindowsNT kernel and they're only just starting to think about making it less vulnerable?

      It's a bit misleading calling it an article about linux, when it's actually an article about microsoft. If you're going to talk about installing Linux in Munich, why would you then go on to interview the entire leadership of a vendor that hasn't been involved since they lost the bid?
      • Re:Nice plug? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by sydb ( 176695 ) <michael @ w d 2 1 . c o . uk> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:49PM (#8417482)
        can you imagine setting up that many copies of any OS?

        Quite. We only have about 10,000 desktop PCs but, even with Microsoft reps onsite full time, lots of money and some clever technical staff, our migration from NT4 to XP has been running for two years and is still not complete.

        Thank god I'm one of the stragglers. XP... eeuuuggghhh!
  • by rduke15 ( 721841 ) <(rduke15) (at) (gmail.com)> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:12PM (#8416937)
    Sounds like a good opportunity to look into why and exactly what isn't going too well, so it can be fixed.
    • by servoled ( 174239 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:20PM (#8416994)
      Usability. Linux simply isn't that user friendly for the common office drone. Chances are the IT monkeys who are doing the rollout are the same monkeys that supported the previous windows setup and aren't that unix savy as well.

      Microsoft has a definite edge in the usability category while Linux has the edge in the security category. They both have their places, but as far as I am concerned for the average business Linux is a better choice for the server side and Microsoft is a better choice for the client side.

      If Apple would aggresively sell their OS for x86 hardware they would probably make a killing since they have found a very good balance between the two sides.
      • by FooBarWidget ( 556006 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:31PM (#8417378)
        And what exactly isn't "user friendly" for the common office drone?

        - To write a document, click on the OpenOffice.org Writer icon.
        - To send email, click on the Evolution Email icon.
        - To browse the web, click on the Mozilla Web Browser icon.
        - To do anything else, click on whatever icons the company installed for you.

        Common office drones don't install software (heck, they're not even allowed to). They don't spend time configuring things because everything is already configured. They don't have to use the commandline.

        People always say "no Linux is not userfriendly enough" but they never say what EXACTLY is wrong! It's exactly because of this kind of trollish attitude that critics aren't being taken seriously anymore.
      • by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:38PM (#8417414)
        "User friendly" isn't the problem. Clicking on an icon is the same. There's just a bit of training so people will know which icon to click on and where it is.

        The big problem is that there are lots of little apps that need to be ported. This is the same in any migration. Someone, somewhere throws together a database for some reason and it becomes "mission critical" to that department.

        So, you have apps that you knew nothing about....

        That need to be ported....

        With 100% functionality....

        Prior to your roll-out....

        And it is probably badly written with no thought to managability or portability or even data integrity....

        And THAT is what eats up your budget.
    • by d00ber ( 707098 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:24PM (#8417013) Journal
      Amen!!! I didn't see a lot of material on what the problems were though.

      * User training?

      * Gaps in the user application space?

      * Porting in-house applications?

      * Database access or porting?

      * Windows or other *NIX interoperability?

      * Availability of trained admins?

      * Cultural problems?

      What is it?
      Inquiring minds want to know!!
    • by Florian Weimer ( 88405 ) <fw@deneb.enyo.de> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:27PM (#8417033) Homepage
      Sounds like a good opportunity to look into why and exactly what isn't going too well, so it can be fixed.

      They are still preparing the invitation to bid. It seems that Red Hat, SuSE, IBM and all the usual suspects want to see too much money, more than initially expected. There isn't much you can do about it. Even bidding yourself wouldn't help because you wouldn't be able to compete against these brands, even if your bid were much lower.
      • by d00ber ( 707098 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:40PM (#8417115) Journal

        It seems like this is an extremely important piece of work for a Linux company to get for two reasons:

        * It is very high profile - Linux beat Microsoft (not on cost BTW) even when uncle Fester flew in (because uncle Fester flew in) to sell Microsoft.

        * This is precisely the type of large rollout that Linux companies need to get a handle on. The company that gets the inside track on this contract will have a wellspring of experience that will translate to thier brand and even into thier product suite.

        It seems that Linux companies out to be fighting for this. Yes they have to make money but sometimes a loss leader is called for for strategic reasons.

        This sounds pretty strategic to me.
    • by MadChicken ( 36468 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:36PM (#8417091) Homepage Journal
      Let me imagine they're installing a distro on every desktop, wasting time standardizing on a rollout plan and specific apps... probably exactly the same way they rolled out Windows in the past. No kidding they're not saving money.

      If they figured out that you can run a netboot or ltsp system in a way you really often can't with Windows, maybe they'll start saving money.
  • No surprise. (Score:5, Informative)

    by rainer_d ( 115765 ) * on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:13PM (#8416943) Homepage
    For those a little bit envolved in this transition, that comes as no surprise.
    E.g. some departments are already running AD and have been issued permissions to run this setup for 2 or 3 more years.
    Other factors are lots of home-grown VB-apps that need to be ported or converted into Webapps, with the added complexity that there's no budget and virtually no knowledge about how to do that...

    Nevertheless, the city will not go back (I hope), because the decision *does* make sense. Just not for Steve Balmer.
    But that should come as no surprise, either.

    Rainer
    • Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sanity ( 1431 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:17PM (#8416975) Homepage Journal
      So it sounds like one of their difficulties is the fact that they were previously using M$ stuff and it is proving more difficult than they expected to disentangle themselves from it.

      Sounds like another good reason to switch to Linux from where I am sitting :-)

      • Re:Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tet ( 2721 ) * <slashdot@astCHEE ... .co.uk minus cat> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:28PM (#8417037) Homepage Journal
        So it sounds like one of their difficulties is the fact that they were previously using M$ stuff and it is proving more difficult than they expected to disentangle themselves from it.

        True enough. But the salient point that everyone seems to miss when looking at things like this is that a trasition from software A to software B is always difficult, for pretty much any A and any B. Were Linux in a dominant position instead, we might well be seeing similar stories about a few high profile sites struggling with an attempted switch to Windows...

        • Re:Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)

          by rainer_d ( 115765 ) * on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:52PM (#8417183) Homepage
          Were Linux in a dominant position instead, we might well be seeing similar stories about a few high profile sites struggling with an attempted switch to Windows...

          I don't think so. GTK, QT etc. are all available in Win32-land. And most of the OpenSource software you and I use is already ported to Win32.
          It's only difficult getting away from Microsoft-written apps, because they are almost the only software-company left that doesn't offer at least some of their products on Linux/Unix.

      • Re:Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)

        by arbour42 ( 731167 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:46PM (#8417143)
        Munich saved tons of money by using RAD tools like Delphi, Access, and VB in the past to build db apps they needed to function - rich client gui apps. Everyone does that. I bet they are running stuff from Delphi 2 and Paradox - 8 years old.

        How are they going to rebuild that? Where's the money coming from? And don't say web apps, because it takes MUCH longer to write a db app originally made in Delphi (which is outstandingly fast) and build it in php / perl / jsp. And these web apps are not close to the ease of use of a Delphi or Access app. Linux and open source DESPERATELY need a RAD tool like Delphi with data-bound controls and grids (too bad borland gave up on Kylix, it seems). All other development in the open source world should take a back seat to this. Why not do it in Python - with TCL or PyQT?

        I really doubt this migration will go through as planned.
        • Re:Ironic (Score:4, Interesting)

          by k_head ( 754277 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @03:15PM (#8418037)
          First of all I want to point out that data bound controls are pretty much evil. Without proper separation of model, view and controller it makes applications very hard to maintain.

          Secondly the answer is java. Eclipse and netbeans are very good IDEs and there are great commercial ones as well. For delphi shops Jbuilder is a great choice because it looks and acts a lot like Delphi. With java you also get great middle tier and scalability. Much better then what you would get with VB or Delphi.

          Finally check out this [bs-factory.org]. They seem to be working on data bound widgets for J2EE.
      • Re:Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)

        by NightSpots ( 682462 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:32PM (#8417382) Homepage
        The problem is that there are no great replacements for Active Directory and Exchange.

        You call it proprietary lock-ins, I call it a damn good way to manage a few thousand users.

        I've been on both sides here. I've done the OpenLDAP database of users, with OS X desktops an Samba fileservers, Sendmail / QPopper / IMAP mail setups for a few thousand users.

        I've also done the Win2k3 servers with AD and Exchange, and WinXP desktops, again for a few thousand users.

        The bottom line is that they both serve the same roles: user management, mail, fileserving.

        The difference is that while it takes 20 seconds to add a user to Active Directory (complete with Exchange mailbox setup, login script assignment, etc), it takes fussing with LDIF files for OpenLDAP. Eventually we went to web applications to mimic the MS tools, but that again takes time and money. There simply aren't the tools available that make it worthwhile for busy administrators to fuss with OpenSource solutions.

        It's difficult to get away from MS tech because MS makes it damn easy to run an enterprise of a few thousand employees. It may be that the IT staff just isn't used to linux (I suppose I benefit from the fact that I grew up on Sun and FreeBSD, which makes it really easy for me to pick up just about any of the common OSes around), but realistically speaking, there's a lot to be said for the enterprise tools that MS offers, even though they cost a lot of money.

        I'm still waiting for an open source package that comes close to rivaling Exchange in functionality. I don't see that happening anytime in the near ( 3 years ) future.
    • Re:No surprise. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tabula Rasa ( 93382 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:38PM (#8417098)
      Any switchover of this kind will run into teething problems. We switched over most of our academic admin office (about 30 computers) to Linux/OpenOffice. Despite the support of two experienced Linux sysadmins and backing from On High, there was considerable grousing that still continues some 6 months later. File opening speeds, minor formatting things, print speeds - anything that might be imagined to be a little worse than the good old Win/Office system. I think it is mostly two factors: resistance to any kind of change, and the loss of freedom to mess around with the system. The slight but obvious user interface issues are a good added excuse.
      On the flip side, though: No viruses. No files lost. No idiot using someone else's machine and wiping out data. Automatic remote backup. The sysadmins are happy! Unfortunately these things do not seem to figure in the tally of the staff, even when one of their colleagues who has yet to switch has had all her files scrambled by one of the latest viruses.
      In short - it is hard to get people to change. But there are enormous savings, and not just financially.
      • Re:No surprise. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by edgezone ( 51898 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:09PM (#8417265) Homepage
        Any switchover of this kind will run into teething problems. We switched over most of our academic admin office (about 30 computers) to Linux/OpenOffice. Despite the support of two experienced Linux sysadmins and backing from On High, there was considerable grousing that still continues some 6 months later. File opening speeds, minor formatting things, print speeds - anything that might be imagined to be a little worse than the good old Win/Office system. I think it is mostly two factors: resistance to any kind of change, and the loss of freedom to mess around with the system. The slight but obvious user interface issues are a good added excuse. On the flip side, though: No viruses. No files lost. No idiot using someone else's machine and wiping out data. Automatic remote backup. The sysadmins are happy! Unfortunately these things do not seem to figure in the tally of the staff, even when one of their colleagues who has yet to switch has had all her files scrambled by one of the latest viruses. In short - it is hard to get people to change. But there are enormous savings, and not just financially.

        You mirrored my thoughts on that. I was thinking 'growing pains' instead of teething, but it still is the same general idea

        Let's face it, Linux DOES need this kind of experience. It's what helps it grow. I mean, you can't say that migrating from Windows 98/ME to XP was an EASY thing for companies. I'm sure that there were plenty of early implimenters who ran into similar cost/resource overruns. The fact of the matter is, the more companies who DO face these things, the more we learn about the process itself. I don't think we can even say that the migration problems are more techinical related or more to do with implementing business processes within a completely new environment

        Having done work in managing software migration within a business process, I know for a fact that pre-existing business rules play a critical role in how easily something is implemented, but with Windows, any time there's a new release, I make sure I read through all the articles of InfoWorld (and other such trade mags) to see all the articles on caveats for migration. Linux needs this type of coverage so that more people actually DOING migrations can know what to plan ahead for. And let's face it, botched upgrades or cost overruns is part of this process.

        Personally, I'm fine with Munich running into more problems then expected, because it's something real and something we can learn from. It just means that the next city/state/country that seeks a migration can communicate with Munich and find out WHERE the problems occurred to plan ahead for it prior to even starting. So each subsequent installation becomes that much easier until it becomes a neatly documented procedure.

        No matter how 'Developers boy' tries and spin it, Microsoft went through the exact same thing with companies who moved to XP from the 9x family (I know I have firsthand experience of that as many of you probably do as well).

  • ads (Score:5, Funny)

    by trmj ( 579410 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:13PM (#8416944) Journal
    I dunno, if I'm to believe all those ads I see here on slashdot, the TCO for windows is less than linux. Because, you know, 7-11 is a company I'd look to for my technology purchase information.
  • by locknloll ( 638243 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:13PM (#8416946) Homepage
    Ballmer said security "occupies a lot of my (mental) bandwidth" these days, and while much still needs to be done to satisfy customers, Microsoft is making "incredible progress" with its 2-year-old Trustworthy Computing strategy.

    That's probably the reason why my Windows machine at work has downloaded the same security update about ten times in the last two weeks. Nice to watch progress in the making...
  • At least... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sanity ( 1431 ) * on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:14PM (#8416950) Homepage Journal
    ...if Linux really is to blame (and I haven't seen any specifics on what problems they are having), then they can fix them themselves. If similar problems occured with Windows, then you would just have to beg Microsoft to fix them for you.
    • Re:At least... (Score:4, Informative)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) * on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:21PM (#8416999)
      ..if Linux really is to blame (and I haven't seen any specifics on what problems they are having), then they can fix them themselves

      The little information the community has about this seems to be that the main problems are purely related to the monopoly status of Windows, ie app compatibility, lack of knowledge, admins who don't want to have to retrain, infighting and so on... not much that can be fixed with changes to Linux, it's purely a matter of economics and inertia

    • Re:At least... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cscx ( 541332 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:29PM (#8417053) Homepage
      The article talks about how they don't have the know-how to successfully complete the OS deployment, and you're suggesting that they actually dive into the code and fix OS problems themselves? Hahahah... seriously, I think you are missing the big picture here.
      • Re:At least... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:19PM (#8417318) Homepage Journal
        ...you're suggesting that they actually dive into the code and fix OS problems themselves? Hahahah...

        Nah; any administrator in Munich or elsewhere would simply understand this to mean they have to hire people to dive into the code. Or assign the job to someone already on staff, though of course it's always better in any organization if you can hire someone and increase the size of your staff.

        And I don't believe that there are no linux/unix programmers looking for a job in the Munich area. If they claim they can't find anyone to help them, they are most likely looking for an excuse to not do the job right.

        Chances are that they have lots of people on staff that would jump at the offer to take linux training courses. This would be good for the old resume, and they have lots of immediate opportunities for some useful class projects.

    • Re:At least... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:33PM (#8417075)
      Yes, of course Ballmer would like us to believe that a Windows to Windows transition of more than ten thousand computers would just go smooth as silk. Yeah, right.

      It's interesting to note, however, that most of the problems Munich is experiencing are exactly the sorts of troubles they are switching to avoid in the future.

      The fact of the matter is that most of the issues revolve around backing out of having used Microsoft propriatary solutions, such as VB, instead of open standards solutions, and now they have to figure out how to migrate between the two, which is not proving as easy as they might have hoped.

      Thus validating their desire to switch.

      The more you use Microsoft the more you have to use Microsoft, and are thus prey to whatever whim sweeps through Redmond at any given moment.

      Obtaining stability and freedom, especially for a government agency totally dependant on a foreign technology, is often worth a good deal of trouble and expense to establish.

      As, perhaps, say, America and American companies are willing to spend far more on researching alternatives to oil than just buying the oil would cost at the moment.

      KFG
  • by GMontag ( 42283 ) <gmontag@guymontag. c o m> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:14PM (#8416952) Homepage Journal
    Funny how there's no mention of all the future costs of licenses they've
    already saved themselves from, yet there's a nice plug for the next version of Windows. Last time I checked, Windows' upgrades from one version to the next were not free by any definition.


    True, those costs are saved and they are quite substantial. The problems are getting everything to work with Linux when it was not designed to from the beginning. Now that is another substantial cost that stands out because it was not a cost anybody was dealing with before.

    These problems are to be expected and certaily should not be a surprise to anybody with a clue. After everything is up and running THEN the savigs will be apparent and the Linux folks will laugh best.
    • by BJZQ8 ( 644168 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:26PM (#8417022) Homepage Journal
      When they get it fixed (notice I'm not going to take the MS line and say IF) it will benefit us all...but more importantly, it will make it much easier for other German cities to simply use Munich's template and switch themselves...If a "custom" version of Windows could somehow be made (and it can't) then it certainly wouldn't be share-able with other municipalities...MS would try to get "custom" fees from everyone. Ten years from now, Munich will be looking back on this period of transition and laughing at all of the licensing fees they didn't have to pay. They have a "first-mover disadavantage."
  • by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:14PM (#8416953) Journal
    So Ballmer is saying "It's more expensive". I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be more expensive - MS were the cheaper (initial cost) of the two solutions for Munich, in fact the article more or less says this.

    So what exactly is this article, apart from a chance for MS to spin the loss of some major business into more fear, uncertainty and doubt ?

    Simon.

  • by xxdinkxx ( 560434 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:14PM (#8416954) Homepage
    For a city the size of munich its nice to see them trying to use linux on such a massive scale, but any kind of technological roll out is going to have unexpected cost. However,as more people do these roll outs, the costs will come down -- or rather be gauged more accurately. We should all be thanmkful that Munich is willing to ungergoing this projects, as it will help the rest of us understand linux deployment on a largetr scale. Also on a personal side note: this is really to be expected seeing how they are using SuSE. SuSE isnt a terrible distro, but since we can all thank suse for being rpm based (yes i know it can support yum and maybe deb).
  • by nharmon ( 97591 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:16PM (#8416962)
    There are quite a few LUGs in Germany [linux.org]. I think it would be great press for one of them to assemble a team to assist their Government with the implementation of GNU/Linux.
  • Pure hearsay (Score:5, Informative)

    by krray ( 605395 ) * on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:17PM (#8416969)
    "They're saying it's more expensive," Ballmer told the Star yesterday

    So we're going to base this entire article on HEARSAY?

    Microsoft's Ballmer says this and says that in the article. What does MUNICH have to say about all this???

    PS: my experience has shown that Linux is the cheapest, most secure, and most reliable system to run. #2 would be OS X with Windows boxes coming in a very distant third. All costs absorbed in the switching happened in the first year (higher hardware & training perhaps) -- but within two years it was paying for itself in the lack of Microsoft tax alone...
  • Note to Ballmer: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Valar ( 167606 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:17PM (#8416970)
    They didn't say it was more expensive than Windows-- they said that it was more expensive than keeping what they had (i.e. having Windows and never upgrading/maintaining it) and more expensive than they anticipated. And I don't know if the Munich government works the same as city governments around here, but it seems to be traditional to severely lowball the costs of projects, just to get them rolling. Later, no one wants to kill a 'city improvement' plan, so everyone grudingly agrees to more funding.
  • How Odd! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Queuetue ( 156269 ) <queuetue&gmail,com> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:17PM (#8416971) Homepage
    I'm surprised that a migration from Windows to somethign else would be difficult. Certainly not so difficult that it would cost more than Microsoft discounting the upgrade (which would not require any migration at all) down near zero.

    There are costs leaving Windows, no doubt. From format lock in, all the way to the staggering stupidity and fear it fosters in it's users, Windows is all about keeping you using Windows.
  • how many.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:17PM (#8416974) Homepage Journal
    ..of those problems are because of they were using ms in the first place?

    and how many of them would have existed when trying to move to a newer microsoft platform, and how many of them transition problems would have been significantly bigger if they had later decided to jump off the ms boat(after this round of upgrades and new lock in's from changing fileformats)?

    -
  • by MJArrison ( 154721 ) * on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:18PM (#8416982) Homepage
    So, let me get this straight.

    A Toronoto newspaper says that Steve Balmer says that Munich is having trouble switching to Linux. Boy, that's great investigative journalism there.
  • by The Tyro ( 247333 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:18PM (#8416983)
    Answer that one for me, Mr. Ballmer.

    They aren't locked into your prescribed update path, at your prescribed price, with your prescribed software... If Microsoft says "like it or lump it," you have no choice, and no freedom.

    Yes, linux can theoretically be "free" (as in beer), but everything has update and maintenance costs (even if only in manpower costs)... everything... including windows and linux.

    Even if it costs a bit more up front... how much are they going to save in the long run? And how much is it worth to be free to choose another vendor? Another tech support company? Another code monkey to maintain their systems?
  • Obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) * on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:19PM (#8416988)
    What do Munch and Ballmer expect? Moving from one version of Windows to another has been the cause of god only knows how many IT budget overruns, and surprise surprise, they are finding that moving everything to Linux is not easy.

    Well, duh. That's why Microsoft has a monopoly, right? Ballmer likes to bitch and whine about how it was a "political decision" and how such things are somehow dirty and rare, but he seems to have missed the fact that every decision is political. There's no such thing as a pure business decision.

    No matter how many TCO studies you do, no matter how many reports are written by an IT dept doing an evaluation, the final decision is going to be made based on how comfortable somebody is with an idea. Going with Microsoft is safe, it's easy, because everybody else does it. That's a political decision. It's the old "nobody got fired for buying IBM" thing.

    The problem with Ballmer is that he sees what he wants to see. Somehow he has to reconcile his beliefs (that Microsoft is better) with reality (people are chomping at the bit to leave them). He does this by saying:

    The people who are making business decisions based on where are the applications, what is the value, what is the lowest cost of ownership, we're not losing them.

    ... while apparently ignoring that TCO includes future costs such as forced upgrades, complying with license audits, working around the inflexibility of their software and so on. The hard to value, intangible costs. So he smears former (and possibly) future customers by writing off their decisions as "political" - a thinly disguised euphamism for "irrational".

    There's another thing. Does anybody else have questions about the competency of the Munich guys to be doing such a migration? Why are they doing a crash switch, which is bound to end in tears? Why are there persistant rumours of them using VMware rather than bringing Wine up to speed on their products (which I'd guess works out cheaper in the long run and certainly provides a better desktop experience).

    Finally, is it just me or does Ballmer look really evil in that photo [thestar.com]?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:21PM (#8416996)
    Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft Corp., appears to take delight in the troubles that Munich is having as it switches 14,000 city computers from Windows to a rival Linux operating system.

    Don't forget that 80% of the Linux computers in Munich run Windows on VMWare [osnews.com]. But they don't mention that in the article, of course, which is intentionally written to make Linux look bad.
  • Isn't it great how (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:21PM (#8416997)
    Isn't it great how ALL of the quotes in this article are from Ballmer? Every single one? I mean, gee, they spend a whole half a paragraph on paraphrasing "news reports out of Germany", but then let Ballmer go on for paragraphs and paragraphs without any attempt to analyze what he is saying. Real balanced journalism, that.

    How many readers of the Toronto Star, do you think, are going to just glance at that article, see a quote from [someone] saying "All of a sudden it's more expensive now to use the Linux solution than the Windows solution," (with respect, in the article, to... well, they don't say what that quote refers to or what its context was, just that he said it at an expo) after a few paragraphs of talking about unexpected cost increases in the Munich city government, and walk away with the interpretation "It has been more expensive for the Munich city government to use Linux than it would have been to use Windows."
  • by MooKore 2004 ( 737557 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:22PM (#8417001) Homepage Journal
    Linux is the better option. It is cheaper, just not in balmers (thats a currency). When I built my system, I had the choice of Windows (179) or Linux (40 for boxed set), natrualy, I chose Linux, I got all my hardware detected, all the software I needed and of course, all the games I played (some with wine).

    Ballmer maybe laughing now, but as more and more organizations switch, it wont be long before Linux DOES cut into Microsoft's profits, and we will see who has the last laugh.

    If you havn't tried Linux before, then [nvu.com]
    Legally get a free copy of Lindows! Lets see Microsoft beat that!
  • You would think.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hangareighteen ( 31788 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:22PM (#8417004) Homepage
    That a company that's recently been hammered in the anti-trust area wouldn't
    have a president gloating over how hard it is to change away from their
    system to a more standards-compliant and open one. I guess they've given
    up any sense of decorum a long time ago, but it's still a bit shocking.
  • by hehman ( 448117 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:25PM (#8417020) Homepage Journal
    Ballmer, recognizing that virus-infected home PCs pose a risk to business users, said the company is studying how consumers can get software patches automatically when flaws are detected in Microsoft software.

    Attention IT managers: the PCs you're in charge of fixing may change their OS behavior at times of their choosing.

    • I can only hope... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by krray ( 605395 ) * on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:00PM (#8417216)
      My advantage has ALWAYS been limiting the Microsoft exposure as much as possible. I saw the writing on the wall with Windows 95 (refused to deploy it -- stuck w/ WFW 3.11). Beyond the desktop, word, and excel Microsoft has been snuffed by me.

      The out come? When everyones network, except mine, were going to hell in a hand basket ... we were always operational and virus free. Always. With Windows now on a segmented network and only running for AutoCAD needs (everything else has been migrated across the offices I oversee) ... my price just went up (I gave myself a bonus :).

      The customer just sees what they didn't have to spend on Windows licensing, the difference between said licensing and the cost of Panther (OS X) [approved upgrade -- which costs ME] -- and the huge savings across all the Linux servers and those Linux desktops that have been deployed (OS X is winning w/ me).

      Upgrade my cost to them while showing them a bill that is 1/2 if not 2/3 the full cost of staying with Windows licensing ... add in the fact that all these Windows virus' just became a moot point -- and everybody walks away happy, working, and with more money in their pocket. Except Microsoft...
  • by kmonsen ( 606584 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:27PM (#8417034) Homepage
    TCO is different for governments, because the money is spent on german labour, which might otherwise be unemployed. Instead the get an educated workforce.

    So to sum it up, they spend the same, but pay germans (so they get some money back), and educate the people. Not really a difficult choice.

  • What exactly (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Queuetue ( 156269 ) <queuetue&gmail,com> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:29PM (#8417042) Homepage
    What exactly makes Ballmer think that the Windows version wouldn't have gone over budget? You'd think that he'd seen enough consulting projects "go north" that he'd understand this is relatively normal, especially in a government job, with a tremendous number of people, and the result of a strongly competitive bidding process. I'm surprised that he can't see that - with his position, he should be able to understand what's going on here.

    Oh, right - he's a fucking liar, from a nest of fucking liars. I forgot.
  • Smart Move (Score:4, Interesting)

    by boudie ( 704942 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:29PM (#8417044)
    It's a smart move on Toronto Star's point. Why would this be news? It isn't. Nobody in Toronto is concerned about how local government in Germany works. So why is is in the paper? Look at the ads. Microsoft, Dell, etc. Now, if it was your paper, are you going to run stories complimentary to your benefactors, or ones that paint them in a bad light. I don't read the Toronto Star, but since most papers are interchangeable in their content and (in Canada at least) are all owned by two or three companies, hence the reason for not lending much credibility to newspapers. Sorry.
  • Humph. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by starseeker ( 141897 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:29PM (#8417048) Homepage
    "Ballmer said governments that abandon Microsoft are more interested in making a political statement than using the best and most affordable software."

    What constitutes the "best" software? Most features? Maybe. Best stability? Maybe. Best security? Maybe.

    For some situations and groups, the best software is software the furthers goals like avoiding dependance on a foreign company with a bad track record for business practices and near monopoly control. Like, say, foreign governments. Which are, after all, political institutions. Why wouldn't they make political statements?

    Microsoft gets it, all right. They will do their best to make decisions other than for immediate $$ spent look silly, but for some in this world there really is more to it than that. Microsoft knows to fear thinking like this, because it cannot be controlled.

    "The people who are making business decisions based on where are the applications, what is the value, what is the lowest cost of ownership, we're not losing them."

    At, but there again value and cost of ownership are not always strictly a matter of $$. Frankly, it's a pretty cold world when that is true, and it's one of the things I dislike about the US. In any case, to solve the chicken egg problem of applications first or users first, the users typically have to take the plunge.

    Ballmer can chuckle all he likes. What he isn't mentioning is that first adapters always, ALWAYS, have a hard time. Did we make fun of the first people who bought those really expensive first generation DVD players? Do universities shrink away from paying Peoplesoft $$$$$$$$$ for rather unimpressive systems that still need lots of tweaking? (I'm still convinced if a couple of them had hired GNU enterprise with that $$$ everyone would have been better off, but that's another post.) Change is tough. But for each person or group that makes the change, things are ironed out and it gets easier next time around. And as things get easier, a proven track record emerges, and the trail is paved, more people start to go down it.

    So sure, Munich is chopping down trees to make a road through the forest right now. But the next time around someone else will have an example to follow, and will also do some more road clearing.

    I'm quite sure if Munich had made the decision to switch over to Macintosh, they'd be facing many of the same problems. To a certain extent change is just hard, period. But the thinking here is long term, not short term. The Media reports short term, Microsoft laughs in the short term. But I'm a lot more interested in the long term, when Munich can look at the next upgrade cycle prices for Windows and laugh in their face.
  • by Perl-Pusher ( 555592 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:31PM (#8417066)
    The press reports they are talking about say this:

    ' The migration plan is more complex than simply replacing Windows with Linux, according to an outline provided by the Munich information department. Studies on open-source security, desktop ergonomics and the software components' stability and compatibility with other applications will be included in the process.

    But according to Computerwoche and other reports, the city lacks the funds to invest in the planned testing and development of an open-source solution. IBM and Germany-based Linux distributor SuSE are expected to help offset the costs of the migration by supplying technical support and conducting some of the studies that the Munich city council has requested.

    Reports in Computerwoche also stated that local vendors who currently code applications for the city were experiencing problems in developing applications for the open-source operating system, since they are more familiar with Windows than Linux.'

    Yes it's more expensive to actually worry about security and design system that factors in security needs.

    It would much cheaper in the short term to just toss the latest MS product on hundreds of machines and ignore security totally. Nobody need do a study, the answer is MS security is almost non existent.

    And the last paragraph speaks volumes about relying on an MS monoculture. Noow those vendors are screwed and any venor who can provide an open source solution for Munich will get there contract.

  • by TheCeltic ( 102319 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:37PM (#8417096) Homepage
    I work for a fortune 500 company that has done many many large Windows rollouts. We also have done many Solaris and Linux installations. Guess what... Windows is often more difficult, more expensive and less stable than Solaris or Linux. Real "objective" reporting. Sounds like the media is appealing to it's sponsors (Microsoft).
  • by Bull999999 ( 652264 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:49PM (#8417163) Journal
    It's not like transitions from one MS to another MS product is easy either. We recently switched from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 and it was a major PITA. Their deployment guide makes it sound easy but their transition tools where major POS.
  • by phillymjs ( 234426 ) <slashdot.stango@org> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:51PM (#8417174) Homepage Journal
    Why is Ballmer gloating like this wasn't expected? Microsoft has worked for over a decade to make their applications into Roach Motels for your data, and the cost (not just financial) of transitioning away from them as painful as possible-- to make many of their dissatisfied customers see sticking with MS as the lesser of two evils, and dissuade them from switching to something else.

    I'm not surprised at all that making the switch away from Microsoft is a rocky and expensive road, after all the work Microsoft has done to make it that way... but once it's done, it's done and you're no longer a slave to Microsoft's licensing whims and mandated upgrades, which in the long run would be much more expensive.

    ~Philly
  • by raque ( 457836 ) <jimwall&mac,com> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:52PM (#8417178)
    One thing that I don't see being noted here is that it's not just how much something costs, but who gets paid. If Munich uses Linux then a lot of the costs stay local, if they use MS then the business is exported. Even if MS uses locals a lot of the money goes to Redmond. With all the bitching about lost jobs we have to remember that other countries have the same problems and Linux is one solution. You can get the best minds around the world working for you, but still keep your business local.
  • FUD FUD FUD FUD (Score:4, Interesting)

    by terrymr ( 316118 ) <terrymr@@@gmail...com> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:57PM (#8417202)
    I keep hearing this story and every time it's somebody from microsoft telling it. From what I hear the problems aren't technical but involve training staff on new applications. There's no doubt that once everybody's up to speed on the new system that it will be less costly in the long term than a Microsoft solution.

    It seems MS has been briefing their employees on what to say about the Munich linux conversion, this all proves that we have them worried.
  • Oh really? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Unregistered ( 584479 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:01PM (#8417218)
    Last time I checked, Windows' upgrades from one version to the next were not free by any definition.

    Yes it is. Its free as in Kazaa.
  • by jbn-o ( 555068 ) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:43PM (#8417444) Homepage

    As much as I'd like to commiserate, there simply isn't enough detail on what the problems are which makes it difficult for anyone to help. But Ballmer reveals more than is probably healthy for Microsoft here:

    "The people who are making political decisions instead of business decisions, we're going to lose some," said Ballmer. "The people who are making business decisions based on where are the applications, what is the value, what is the lowest cost of ownership, we're not losing them.

    "For us, anything that becomes a political issue, nobody wins them all on merit."

    However, this is a compelling reason to stand on the side of free software for freedom, rather than low price (and this, again, is one reason why "free software" trumps "open source" [gnu.org]). Low price may get people's attention, but sometimes unexpected expenses come up and what will keep people around (such as the Chinese government as mentioned in the article) in the long term is software freedom--being able to inspect, share, and modify the software. When you base your decision on software freedom, software proprietors simply can't compete no matter how much they mark down the cost of their software. They know that and that is where free software can win. Technical merit can be had with enough time and effort, and low price is a side effect of software freedom. But the freedom itself, by definition, is not something you can get from any proprietor. The free software community does themselves a disservice by not teaching people about software freedom.

  • by pavera ( 320634 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @01:46PM (#8417460) Homepage Journal
    I admin a 7000 node network with 35000 email accounts, we have a 4 server cluster for email (postfix, courier imap) it easily supports the 35000 customers, when we were building the network we looked at everyone, to do a MS solution with exchange we would have needed between 100 and 150 dual proc xeon 2.4 procs (because exchange only supports between 200 and 300 accounts per box).. Not to mention the fact that we would then need 100-150 copies of Advanced Server at 1500 a pop... instead we have a very comparable email system for less than 8 grand... Oh yeah and we don't spend 8-10 hours a day rebuilding corrupted exchange databases.
  • by malia8888 ( 646496 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @02:05PM (#8417560)
    In the late 60's a popular longshoreman/philosopher, Eric Hoffer, gave us the book "The Ordeal of Change". In it he says roughly that change causes revolutions; more than revolutions cause change. The users in Munich (admin problems not withstanding) are suffering from CHANGE . Once the Linux operating system starts looking normal and ordinary the angst will be over.

    A good analogy would be moving the tire swing of a gorilla. It is going to take awhile before "JoJo" realizes it is a good thing.

  • City Linux (Score:5, Insightful)

    by danila ( 69889 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @02:16PM (#8417615) Homepage
    Eventually someone will make a Linux distribution customised for municipal administrations. One that will be possible to deploy quickly in any city of the world. What is needed is for these governments to realise the importance of contributing back their solutions. If Munich solves their migration problems, they should share the solutions with Paris, Beijing, Bangalore and Austin...
  • by dpm ( 156773 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @02:19PM (#8417628)
    Wired has an English summary of the information in the German press:

    http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,6 22 36,00.html

    According to the story, here are the major problems, aside from some resistence among city hall staffers:

    1. Munich insists on a whole bunch of studies into topics like Open Source security, desktop ergonomics, and software component stability and compatibility as part of the transition, but wants someone else (i.e. IBM and SuSE) to pay for them.

    2. Local custom software contractors don't know how to write Linux apps.

    Obviously, the first problem has more to do with politics than technology (to paraphrase Ballmer). You can always raise costs by wrapping something in red tape.

    The second is a real technical problem, but it also occurs trying to move older Windows apps (i.e. 95, 98) to newer Windows versions. Solution: write Web apps, bozos (that way, if they ever want to go to yet another OS on the desktop, their apps will still work). The real problem is that they still think writing custom client-side apps in *any* OS is a good idea.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28, 2004 @04:12PM (#8418379)
    a simple case of sloppy reporting, seems to me. check for yourself:

    first source for all things german, heise.de:

    http://www.heise.de/newsticker/result.xhtml?url= /n ewsticker/meldung/43485&words=Linux%20M%fcnche n

    based, in turn, on this article in computerwoche:

    http://www.cowo.de/index.cfm?pageid=267&type=Art ik elDetail&id=80114785&cfid=57927&cftoken=85649319&n r=2&kw=munchen

    nothing in there about linux being more expensive (than what?).

    main problem seems to be that the head of the project hoped to put together a municipal linux task force, but the municipality isn't freeing city employees to dedicate their hours; since the city coffers aren't brimming, there's now a budget problem for the "refined project" phase they're currently working on.

    who publishes the toronto star...?
  • by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Saturday February 28, 2004 @05:00PM (#8418676)
    Well, Mr. Balmer, I would say that Microsoft isn't doing to well in Munich either. Harharharhar.

    Nobody said migration would be cheaper or easier, stupid. On the contrary, _everybody_ said it would be more tedious and expensive. But the majority also said it would pay of in the long run _and_ serve as a landmark for free software growth. And would be a desireble political statement.

    Just go on. The more the process of migration recieves a bashing from MS, the stronger the impact will be when Munich migration has succeeded.
  • by walterbyrd ( 182728 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @08:53PM (#8419943)
    To me the article looked like nothing but typical msft hype. Msft floods with pop-media with this cr@p.

    I would have been interested to know *specifically* what problems Germany is having with Linux. I have no doubt that a move like that would be difficult. Vendor lock-in is what msft is all about, and msft is very good at it, has been for 20 years.

    Are Germany's problems related to not being able to run msft apps? Or is it difficult for users to learn linux? Or is linux more difficult to administrate? Or something else?

  • by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @11:42PM (#8420749)
    is why anyone would accept this piece at face value. Notice that it doesn't link any sources. Are there any? Not as far as I can tell. I've trolled the german IT news sites (I read german) and I haven't found anything that smacks remotely of the claims the article makes.

    The only actual quote in the article is from Balmmer: "They're saying it's more expensive" and he goes on to gush: "All of a sudden it's more expensive now to use the Linux solution than the Windows solution." I seriously doubt that any evidence of this can be found in the German press. I certainly can't find any. I also asked my German friends in IT if they had heard of anything. No they hadn't. If there is no evidence, then Ballmer is a bare-faced liar.

    What I suspect we have here is simply Ballmer cackling over the results of a FUD piece that he had planted in the first place. If so, it's nothing new, it's the level of ethics we've come to expect from Microsoft.

"The vast majority of successful major crimes against property are perpetrated by individuals abusing positions of trust." -- Lawrence Dalzell

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