Microsoft Loses Munich Contract to Linux (Bloomberg) [LWN.net]

Bloomberg reports that, as expected, the city of Munich has voted to press forward with its program to convert to Linux. "The city's council voted in a closed-door meeting 50-29 in favor of a detailed plan to switch to Linux from Windows. Munich, which has spent more than a year studying how to make the move, will accept bids within a few months from Linux vendors. Companies such as International Business Machines Corp. and Novell Inc. are expected to fight for orders."

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Huh?

Posted Jun 16, 2004 20:15 UTC (Wed) by rcbixler (guest, #11917) [Link]

When I first saw this headline, I thought that this story is a repeat.
But now that I have read it, I see that the earlier stories were
incomplete in that it wasn't clear that there would be any kind of vote
after one year as to whether the Linux conversion would go ahead.
Perhaps it is me who missed something, but I found the headline to be
highly confusing in that it wasn't clear that, having read last year's
story, this story would convey any new information.

Odd Saga

Posted Jun 16, 2004 22:04 UTC (Wed) by shredwheat (guest, #4188) [Link]

I'm also a bit confused by this "ongoing transition". I remember not too closely reading that Microsoft was pleased that the Munich Linux transition was going very poorly and was significantly over budget.

Now I read they haven't actually started yet. Ah well, I guess Linux reporters jumped the gun by saying Munich had chosen Linux, when it seems they had only decided to evaluate it.

Odd Saga

Posted Jun 17, 2004 13:40 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link]

Hate to say this, but any time Microsoft starts yammering that someone's gone "over budget" trying to transition away from Microsoft (and that's assuming Munich actually did this,) or away from *any* proprietary system for that matter, it's time to start questioning the ethics of the proprietor.

These days, there should be no reason for software to *not* be plug-compatable with other software, no matter the vendor.

Other than greed.

Odd Saga

Posted Jun 18, 2004 2:00 UTC (Fri) by sidboyce (guest, #10891) [Link]

When competition rears its head, customers' tunnel vision eventually fades, next the incumbent supplier tries to defeat the competition with FUD, lastly the incumbent chooses a path to ruin. That was the situation IBM found itself in when it had defeated the mainframe alternatives, they won the battle, but their ship was badly holed.
Increasingly Microsoft will find its customers asking for interoperability with Linux and other open source, failure to comply will initiate their decline.
Their customers by and large don't yet realise the landscape is changing, but they will and their attitudes will shift dramatically, trickle then gush.