[Bradford] NHS Microsoft License

[Alice Kaerast]

I wouldn't be so sure; there's a lot of software piracy going on here.
We've seen promotional images of operating theatres where if you look
really closely at the monitors you can see big error messages stating
"This version of Windows may not be genuine".

The license extends to staff's home computers, and there certainly was
some discussion on how all of these people would now have to start
using Open Office (and that's an awful lot of people if they're all
actually using NHS licenses).  In reality how many of these people do
you think will actually switch and how many will just continue using
what they've always used?

From experience most people just continue using the software they
always have, regardless of what actual license they have.  Case in
point, laptop came into repair today with "this version of Windows may
not be genuine"; it has a perfectly valid COA sticker, the person who
last reinstalled Windows just decided to use a VLK rather than OEM
install because it's easier and that's what they've always done.

So yeah, eventually we may see larger uptake of Open Office in health
sectors.  And the increased uptake, particularly from such a large
organisation may lead to quicker bugfixes.  But Microsoft Office is
still going to be the de facto standard elsewhere for quite some time.



On Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:48:46 +0100
Dick Thomas <xpd259 at gmail.com> wrote:

> This could be good news for openoffice.org and other 'replacements'
> 
> "TelegraphTech: Microsoft loses NHS contract http://tgr.ph/cJD1c0"
> --http://www.twitter.com/TelegraphTech/status/18905474208
> 
> ---------------
> Dick



-- 
Alice Kaerast

Systems Reliability Guru
Computer Gentle Group