MS Won't Release Study Disputing Munich's Linux-Switch Savings 268
itwbennett writes "As previously reported on Slashdot, in November of last year, the city of Munich reported savings of over €10 million from its switch to Linux. Microsoft subsequently commissioned a study (conducted by HP) that found that, in fact, 'Munich would have saved €43.7 million if it had stuck with Microsoft.' Now, Microsoft has said it won't release the study, saying that '[it] was commissioned by Microsoft to HP Consulting for internal purposes only.'"
show us (Score:5, Interesting)
Show us your cards, it doesn't matter now Mr. Ballmer.
Linux claimed to be cheaper than Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Pricing... (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean made up pricing?
They could easily release enough to quiet the masses and not give away that level of detail.
If they are cutting Munich a one time special deal that would be even more they don't want to release. Save $40 million now! Pay $80 million next year.
Re:Pricing... (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean made up pricing?
I presume the "special" pricing you get if you're a large organisation and say to MS, "we're going to switch to linux to save money and then talk to the press about it"
Re:Linux claimed to be cheaper than Windows (Score:1, Interesting)
Well, and the business processes are much more reliable. You hire 10 MSCE, and they obey a bell curve in intelligence and cover a predictable ground. Hire one Linux specialist for the same workload, and you are banking on just a single person probably twice the price of an MSCE. If he gets overworked, you can't just pull the next MSCE from beneath a railroad station bench to stock up a bit. You need to double your personnel, and you actually need to do interviews and have an interviewer with a clue. And you can't rely on your existing Linux technician for that clue since Linux people are strange.
Maybe (Score:4, Interesting)
Wait a minute (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article
Operating the Microsoft software (not including licensing fees) would cost [EUR]17 million, while the alternative will amount to almost [EUR]61 million
(emphasis mine)
Of course if you exclude the cost of buying (sorry- licensing) the software it is cheaper!
Re:What did you expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would anyone ever release a bullshit FUD report?
If they release it someone could criticize it, if not they can keep making claims you can't refute.
Meanwhile, reports from the 1950's showed certain cigarettes didn't cause significant throat irritation. In other studies doctors recommended certain brands of cigarettes.
I guess it's just a matter of finding the right people to .. uh .. doctor your results.
Re:as with all paid-for-by-microsoft "studies" (Score:5, Interesting)
Competent engineers are more expensive...
Incompetent windows engineers are ten a penny, incompetent engineers generally don't even know what linux is so won't claim to know it.
Competent windows engineers are no cheaper than competent linux engineers.
How would you spin that if you were MS marketing? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What did you expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What did you expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
Our company uses MS office. I am a good programmer and a fairly competent computer user. I absolutely hate MS office. The other day I could not delete an embedded picture without deleting the one right below it, even though they were independently selectable. How irritating.
I am not saying libre office is better. I am saying it can't be much worse.
Re:conducted by HP (Score:5, Interesting)
On that note... one place I worked tried hiring HP a couple of times to conduct studies and make recommendations for our network and systems. They tried that because they'd had a long relationship with DEC, and this was shortly after HP bought Compaq (who had bought DEC before that), and they were expecting the work done to be of the quality they'd gotten from DEC consultants in the past.
They supposedly spent weeks doing the study and writing up the reports... and when they came in, they were obviously generic company boilerplate that someone had edited, including many missed instances of things like COMPANY NAME. And - surprise! - all their recommendations were for HP products and services, with the only comparisons being to companies well known for being expensive. For extra fun, a good part of the body of the report was taken from a white paper that had been produced by a group at some university - they'd accidentally left in some of the text identifying the authors and where they were in the first version they gave to us.
We never hired HP to do a study for us again after that. As I recall, my boss also refused to pay them for giving us a report that we could have gotten ourselves from a Google search. Not sure what happened in the end with payment, but their local people, who were former DEC people, were deeply embarrassed.
Actually, it DOES matter (Score:5, Interesting)
As such, it is a certainty that this 'study' is more of the same and would be shown to be so. That would be very difficult for MS's sales ppl to counter.
Re:Maybe (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This story (Score:4, Interesting)
Who are you kidding? I don't care if Microsoft releases source code for anything, that's their thing. I don't want .NET, Office, or DirectX on Linux.
Re:Obviously (Score:4, Interesting)
'[it] was commissioned by Microsoft to HP Consulting for internal purposes only.'
Which of course is why they publicly claimed the 43.7M Euro figure.
Which brings up a sort of interesting point.... The EU has some rather strict laws regarding the "truthiness" of advertising. Does the public claim of massive savings equate to an advertisement for Microsoft? And if so, shouldn't the report be required to be publicly released to support such an advertisement? (Even if the methods and subsequent conclusions are ridiculed.)
Re:Dieter sprake (Score:2, Interesting)
No!
Former Microsoft executive says CEO Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power
Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer is not the right leader for the world's largest software company but holds his grip on it by systematically forcing out any rising manager who challenges his authority, claims a former senior executive who has written a book about his time at the company.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/01/22/us-microsoft-book-idUKBRE90L04320130122 [reuters.com] [reuters.com]
Re:Obviously (Score:4, Interesting)
The 43.7 million is probably in short-term costs, i.e. the cost of switching over to Linux (retraining, deployment, etc.). The 10 million is probably the cost in long-term savings, i.e. the cost of Microsoft licenses and hardware upgrades after ~4-5 years.
What HP's study probably take into account is that the deployment of new boxes would've had to happen anyway, irrespective of whether it was new Windows boxes or new Linux boxes.