[Gllug] Tossing my cookies

[William Palfreman]

On 19 Oct 2001, John Hearns wrote:

> Aha!
> SO the truth is out about the story on local governments threatening
> to go Linux/Star Office which I sent out earlier in the week.
> 
> Have a look at page 5 of Computing:
> "town Halls seek MS Licence Deal"
> 
> And also look at page one:
> "NHS seeks 50 million save in MS deal"
> So lets get this right - MS put in a new licensing scheme, which
> results in organisations like NHS having to pay LOTS more.
> Then they do a deal with you (locking you further into MS BTW)
> which saves a deal of money - but hey, now they're doing you good,
> as you are saving.
> 
> In this article it says that 85% of the NHS software budget
> goes to Microsoft. Grrrrr.... they should be spending this money
> on software to treat sick people...
> 
> 
> I'm about to go off and toss my cookies.

LOL.  It seems to always get like this in big organisations.  The NHS is
particularly bad at IT I know, partly because the people with the status
are the talent - doctors, nurses, surgeons etc., and they generally still
live in the paper age.  You have no influence because you are not a
"carer".  The other group with the status are the management types.  
Probably amongst the least popular groups in Britain, as very few people
can miss that they don't exactly seem to be adding much to actual
treatment, while costing a lot of money.

These people are the ones who tend to get sucked into the whole platform
fallacy.  E.g. "What's required is a strategic approach to our choice of
platform.  That is why we have decided to go for the industry standard
Wintel strategy.  This will allow us to leverage of organisational
strengths, while opting-in to the very best of professional support most
suited to our applicational requirements"

Obviously they don't, they want something that works like Linux.  But even
Solaris would probably do, and give them the nice corporate buzz you get
from buying a "solution".  They probably haven't even heard of Sun. I
imagine the terms of the licence prohibit non-MS additions - for
security and support reasons ;-)

-- 
Bill.
[just imagine a less boring sig than normal here] 


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