[HLUG] hereford councils contract with microsoft up for renewal

Wed Sep 29 07:55:16 UTC 2010

On Tue, 2010-09-28 at 22:45 +0100, Sarah Chard wrote:
> there are options though
> http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/bristol-city-council-to-consider-open-sourcemicrosoft-tie-up-9966
> which involve partial migration to start removing the lock-in 

some of the press took Bristol's announcement as a negative view of open
source, ie they hadn't got it to work...but of course it has just
highlighted the lock-in situation. 

The LibreOffice announcement this week potentially gives vendors (incl
Red Hat, but more likely specialist organisations) the opportunity to
offer LibreOffice support on multiple platforms (incl Windows)

Having spoken to organisations like British Airways and others in the
past, the real cost is Office; Windows is free from M$. The biggest
problem is Windows/Office goes out of support after 3-4 years and forced
upgrades are the biggest cost. 

Anyone want to start a business to offer commercial support for
LibreOffice (it gets tricky around Sharepoint, Exchange etc) ?  One
interesting opportunity for Herefordshire would be resell support to
other councils and 'create' a community along with Bristol and others.
It worked with Camden and APLAWS [1] and through commercial development
has stopped, the community lives on. 

Malc

[1] Herefordshire also looked at APLAWS for their Government Gateway in
2004 and Red Hat did some work for them; it got canned with the arrival
of the 'Accenture' model.

> 
> -- 
> Sarah
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2010-09-28 at 22:12 +0100, Richard Smedley wrote:
> > Yes, MS have the council firmly in its
> > grip - the only way out of this is
> > mandating open standards. Once all
> > apps are compatible with open data
> > formats, then options become available
> > - whether proprietary or Free Software. [1]
> > 
> > Until then, well ... enjoy seeing your
> > council tax flying over the Atlantic :-/
> > 
> >  - Richard
> > 
> > [1] Open Standards benefit everyone except
> >     monopolists. ;o)
> > 
> > On 28/09/10 21:56, Sarah Chard wrote:
> > > I wonder what comments/thoughts other HLUG members have about the
> > > following which I have just read on the Herefordshire council website
> > > relating to the decision made in april 2008 to renew the councils
> > > contract with microsoft
> > > http://councillors.herefordshire.gov.uk/iedecisiondetails.aspx?id=1609&j=1&zts=undefined
> > > 
> > > 
> > > the contract is up for renewal in april 2011 so they must already be
> > > discussing whether or not they should renew it - it seems to have been
> > > rubber stamped in 2008 - 
> > > the relevant wording from the council's 2008 decision is below - perhaps
> > > we should be offering the council an alternative viewpoint before they
> > > make their 2011 decision and spend all that money?
> > > 
> > > Purpose:
> > > To agree the renewal of the current Microsoft Enterprise Agreement
> > > licence, support and maintenance contract covering all corporate
> > > (excluding schools, education and research) Microsoft computer software
> > > in use within the authority for a period of three years.
> > > 
> > > Decision:
> > > THAT
> > > 
> > > a)      the funding available is noted; and
> > > 
> > > b)     the contract is renewed in the sum of £645,000 over the three
> > > year period.
> > > 
> > > Reasons for the decision:
> > > To ensure that all corporate Microsoft software is covered in terms of
> > > support, maintenance and licence compliance for a period of three years
> > > and to ensure that the Council continues to receive the associated forty
> > > percent discount for new Microsoft software.
> > > 
> > > Alternative options considered:
> > > 1.      There are no realistic alternative options in terms of supplier.
> > > The majority of partners, local Councils, Central Government
> > > departments, NHS agencies and businesses use Microsoft software.
> > > 
> > > 2.      To switch to another supplier would be problematic at best as
> > > the majority of business applications within the Council only work on
> > > and with Microsoft operating systems and Office software. They would,
> > > therefore, become unworkable, necessitating their replacement. In short,
> > > the Council are locked into this supplier as are all other organisations
> > > who predominantly use Microsoft software on such a scale.
> > > 
> > > 3.      Microsoft software costs are seen as a “cost of doing business”
> > > by most organisations as there is no real alternative supplier that
> > > provides the same breadth of software to the same high quality and most
> > > importantly, to the same level of usability for staff and engineers.[1]
> > > 
> > > 4.      The authority could choose not to renew the Enterprise
> > > Agreement. However, this means the Council will lose out on the benefits
> > > of having an organisation-wide agreement and face a much larger cost
> > > when rolling out projects that require desktops or servers or when
> > > purchasing Microsoft products. When Microsoft upgrades its current line
> > > of products the Council would not be able to upgrade them and would have
> > > to buy the new version at full price. At over 2000 desktop users and
> > > over 100 servers this would be at a much higher cost (40% extra per unit
> > > of Microsoft software). Additional staff resource would be required to
> > > provide licence compliance support.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > ________________________________________________________________________
> > > [1] The only alternative to Microsoft software is open source software.
> > > This is provided by many different companies. Whilst appearing to be
> > > free, the total cost of ownership is similar if not slightly higher than
> > > when using Microsoft software on such an organisation-wide scale. The
> > > majority of the business applications in use do not work on this
> > > platform so most of the other software in use across the Council would
> > > need to be replaced as well as the core desktop and server software.
> > > Full retraining of all staff and technical engineers would need to take
> > > place and further integration with the Primary Care Trust who use
> > > Microsoft software would be made more difficult and costly.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Publication Date: 11/04/2008
> > > 
> > > Date of Decision: 10/04/2008
> > > 
> > > Effective from: 17/04/2008
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > Herefordshire LUG mailing list
> > Web:  http://www.herefordshire.lug.org.uk
> > List: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/herefordshire
> 
> 
> --
> Herefordshire LUG mailing list
> Web:  http://www.herefordshire.lug.org.uk
> List: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/herefordshire

-- 
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Dr Malcolm Herbert
Director, EMEA Strategy & Solutions Office
t: +44 7720 079845
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