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UpdateUpdatePosted Jan 8, 2004 11:36 UTC (Thu) by eyal (subscriber, #949)Parent article: Suddenly, competition is in (Haaretz) It seems that M$ responds to the threat from Open Office and Linux... A recent update in the Israeli media reveals a letter from the Israeli M$ office to the MoF. In the letter M$ offers to lower prices by means of "fine tuning" the software bundle they offer to each government office. The letter also calls for a meeting of MoF representatives with the VP of M$ Europe for "discussing the options of the government". Previosuly the deal was, more or less, all of M$ stuff for a fixed $177 per seat per year. This included not only the workstation side but also the server parts (eg. Exchangle, SQL) as well. Now M$ is saying "maybe you don't need all our stuff so there's room for discounts". There was another report, a few days ago, that M$ unofficialy offered that government offices report lower number of seats than they really have, in order to lower total cost. This would have been a smart move on M$ given the uphill battle ahead: On the one hand the customer (governemnt) is in a vulnerable position as it's always in a breach of contract. On the other hand M$ doesn't lower prices, which usually invites another round of discount pressures from the business sector and maybe other governments. Apparently the offer was turned down, which I think is a real pitty. If it were to work this way, then M$ would have no legal basis to demend anyone actually pay for their products: if they allow the government to pirate, no judge in his/her right mind would ever convict any other user for doing the same. Of course M$ denied it ever hinted at such a direction, but this last update shows that M$ is under pressue and exploring ways of lowering the price. In an ideal world I'd be really happy that my taxes are better utilized, but I know the money will just go to some other redundant public spending. It's half comfort at least that M$ will get much less of it. Eyal.
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