[LINK] MS audit cripples city

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

MS audit cripples city
By: Kieren McCarthy
Posted: 06/11/2000 at 12:05 GMT

A demand by Microsoft to run an audit on all its software has brought chaos
to the city of Virginia Beach, Virginia. A one-page letter demanded to see
all software licences to prove the software wasn't counterfeit. The
thinking is that since government departments tend to go for the lowest
supplier quote, they may inadvertently pick up pirate software.

The city's CIO admits that Microsoft is legitimately entitled to order such
an audit, but we don't think he's all that happy about it. The demand will
affect every department and tie up large numbers of staff - Virginia Beach
is almost entirely run on MS kit and they will have to check around 3,500
computers. Not only that, but if the city can't prove that a piece of
software is legit, it may have to pay full whack for them. It could be
facing a nasty bill at the end of it.

Having managed to get a 30-day extension on the deadline, it now has until
the end of the month to comply. A quarter of the city's IT staff have been
put onto the job full-time, causing backlogs in IT updates across the
organisation. Have fun lads.

-- 
Any fool can make a rule - And every fool will mind it.
-- Henry David Thoreau

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd@dynamite.com.au