Turku' love affair with Linux has ended

The finnish city which in october of 2001 announced a complete switch to Linux on their ~5000 computers. They have now settled a deal with Microsoft. Also to top the traison off the university of Turku will be switching their 4000 PCs to Windows 2000.

This is truely a sad announcement, because the city of Turku was amongst the first to officially experiment with Linux on such a large scale in that kind of environment. I would like to know what kind of deal they settled with the devil because they were set to save 26 million euros a year, if the entire finnish government network was switched - dropping the cost from 200 euros to a mere 20 euros a year per PC.

.
.
.
.
.
NGene, your town has been owned - prepare to be assimilated

[Tyr_7BE]

M$ will stop at nothing. I go to the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. I don't know if any of you recall, but a while back there was a slashdot story on Microsoft and my school. Basically, M$ has a strong history of partnerships with Waterloo, but general attitude was leaning towards Linux. M$ made the school an offer they couldn't refuse, donating over $2.5 million. In return, some of the Math and Engineering guys were contracted to design a new handwriting recognition system for the pocket PC (no big deal), and (here's the kicker) all first year programming courses had to be taught in C#. The university has re-evaluated its relationship with MS due to the explosion of student protest, but there are still courses being offered in C#, and there are now no plans to move the school network from Win2k to Linux in the forseeable future (there used to be a significant movement to do just that).

These Microsoft "special deals" are nothing but bribes if you ask me - if they can't compete on the quality of the products offered at the price it's offered at they simply offer you a one time rebate in return for some "favor" - in some cases this would be abandoning efforts to change network infrastructures or in Tyr's case direct influence on the way of business.

This just leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.. This is pure power abuse, and while Windows as such is an overall decent product, we shouldn't let ourselves push around by it's makers just because they have always done so.

[cga]

This is one reason why I have an attitude toward M$, and yes, it is a bribe. They will try and sell you a $500 program, but when you resist and decide to go with an Open Source option, or even a cheaper competing product, suddenly there is a "special discount" and you can get for much less or free, and hey, while we're at it, here's a bunch of other "free" stuff.

Until one year later, when its time to upgrade and you are locked in to M$'s proprietary software- then they get you. And the next year, and the next year and the next...

The nature of business is that when there's a contract to be filled - each interested party makes a bid.

When Microsoft discovers that they cannot compete on prices, they use their market penetration as leverage and set demands in return for a cheaper bid..

Name me just one other sitiuation that works like that in any other kind of contract case.

This is why their business pratices in my eyes are completely fraudulant, and should warrent investigation.

[cga]

[quote author=Lovechild link=board=13;threadid=7325;start=0#67500 date=1057181530]
The nature of business is that when there's a contract to be filled - each interested party makes a bid.

When Microsoft discovers that they cannot compete on prices, they use their market penetration as leverage and set demands in return for a cheaper bid..

Name me just one other sitiuation that works like that in any other kind of contract case.

This is why their business pratices in my eyes are completely fraudulant, and should warrent investigation.
[/quote]

When I bid on large projects, I submit sealed, Firm Fixed Price bids which are all opened on a specified date at a specified time. There is no going back after the fact and lowering the price based on what other consultants have bid.

I have a problem with M$ charging one price to Joe and a lower price to Bob because Bob was going to choose something else. Does Joe get a refund on the difference? Nope. And M$ actually ends up charging more to the rest of us poor "Joe's" to make up for what they lost on Bob.