[dundee] Microsoft tactics - Universities

[James Young]

Yep, but it's not just health boards.  It's open to any NHS employee. 
You can also get earlier versions this way too (although I believe 
that's a revision to policy)

As you can imagine, this could cause some 'opportunities'.  I've looked 
at 07 briefly and its backward compatibility isn't too great.  The 
problem being that the compatibility pack is a download  and  its not  
entirely compatible.  

They're trying to get Office on machines and Vista on machines as much 
as they can.  Not out of desperation but as a strategy to position 
upcoming software like Live and Silverlight.

It could also be a tactic to cause a refresh in the PC cycle.  I think 
it's operating on all kinds of different levels though and is part of 
strategy.  Of course, I also believe that JFK wasn't killed by Lee 
Harvey Oswald. :-)

gordon dunlop wrote:
> Hi James,
> Great post, just the person I want to talk to regarding some of my 
> previous posts. I want you to confirm that this great benevolence of 
> Santa Gates in giving away Office 2007 at knockdown prices is not only 
> happening in Academic Institutions but also in Health Boards. I told 
> my wife that she can get Office 2007 Professional for only £10 and if 
> she  wanted to benefit from Uncle Bill's  bargain basement prices 
> (sic)  then it is up to her. She was not really interested  as she is 
> happy using Office 2003 (for work purposes) and is not interested in 
> using an alien system of using a ribbon interface. She is not 
> interested in computers, she just wants the work to be done using the 
> applications she is comfortable with. She uses openoffice in Fedora 7 
> for non-work purposes and is reasonably comfortable with it as the 
> toolbars and menus are similar in a way with Office 2003. There is an 
> odd grumble when openoffice does not have a functionality that Office 
> 2003 has, above that it works O.K. for her. I reckon that Microsoft 
> are trying to cover their blushes in that people in general do not 
> want to buy or use Office 2007 and that they are targeting specific 
> Institutions into using their products at knockdown prices.
>
> Gordon
>
>
> James Young wrote:
>> In personal experience of Microsoft/EDS contracts it looks great - of 
>> course, the people making the decisions above us don't take the time 
>> to perceive the costs of the outsource. 
>
>
>
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