[LINK] Is Microsoft losing ground to Linux?

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

Is Microsoft losing ground to Linux?
By Robert Lemos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
November 1, 2002, 3:34 PM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-964310.html?tag=fd_top

Open-source software gave Microsoft a one-two punch this week, with the
European Union and an African nonprofit educational organization showing
preference for Linux systems.

The European Union awarded on Thursday a $249,000 (250,000 euro) contract
to U.K.-based system-integrator Netproject to study the feasibility of
moving the information systems of several member countries' governments to
the Linux operating system from Microsoft's Windows OS.

Microsoft's expensive licensing terms and its push for customers to speed
their software upgrade cycles are driving the European Union's interest in
open-source solutions, said Eddie Bleasdale, Netproject's CEO. Describing a
meeting with representatives from several EU member countries, Bleasdale
said Microsoft's current licensing terms had governments looking for other
options.

"Everybody in the room said that they could not deal with the cost of
moving to Microsoft's latest products," Bleasdale said.

Adding insult to injury, SchoolNet Namibia, an organization providing
computing resources to that sparsely populated country, has turned down a
Microsoft offer to put Windows systems in their schools and decided to stay
with its Linux systems. In a very public letter, the organization lambasted
Microsoft for a plan that would give the schools a $2,000 break on Office
software but make them pay $9,000 for Windows XP.

"The real issue for schools is not the cost of proprietary software
licensing, but the challenges and costs of deployment, maintenance and
skilled human resources," Joris Kamen, founding executive director for
SchoolNet Namibia, stated in a letter to Microsoft's East and South Africa
regional manager. "Conventional Microsoft products have rapid product
cycles and quick obsolescence, along with expensive long-term maintenance
and support implications."

The two incidents are the most recent in a backlash against Microsoft's
push to sell its latest versions of Windows and Office products.

Last May saw many Microsoft customers balk at signing up for the company's
new subscription-based licensing. Under the software giant's new program,
customers would be forced to pay either an annual fee of $29 per desktop or
an annual subscription fee for the right to upgrade their Microsoft
software to stay up to date--instead of paying for upgrades at will, as
before.

Although Microsoft wouldn't comment directly on the Namibia incident, Peter
Houston, senior director for the Windows server product management group,
did say the company's latest product push hasn't won the company many
friends.

"It would be hard to say that things like our new licensing haven't made
customers look at Linux," Houston said.

"I guess one of the challenges is that as a customer, you are faced with
all sorts of information, and the question is what do you trust," Houston
added. "A lot of this gets proved over time, and customers are being asked
to make a bet on whether Linux will win out."

In March, Peruvian Congressman Edgar David Villanueva Nunez wrote a letter
to Microsoft countering the company's attacks against a bill in Peru that
could advocate the use of open-source software by the country's government.

In the United Kingdom, the group responsible for making technology
recommendations to the U.K. police has pushed the use of Linux as a way to
cut the cost of software ownership by as much as 65 percent, according to a
Netproject study.

And in California, open-source advocates have proposed legislation, the
Digital Software Security Act, that would force government agencies to only
use software that didn't have restrictions on it.

The changes have Microsoft, and some policy organizations funded by the
company, on the offensive against open-source software.

For one, Microsoft's Houston takes issue with any cost-of-ownership study
that puts open-source software ahead of Microsoft's products.

"If you are going to use Linux, there is a high services component," he
said. "You are going to have to pay for that systems integration."

-- 
The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands
what will sell.
-- Confucius

Regards
brd

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