[Sussex] In the news

[Geoff Teale]

So,

I got in this morning to see in the news that our darling government has
awarded a new IT contract  to upgrade 500,000 desktops and servers in the
NHS to run Microsofts latest platforms, and office software to bring them in
line with the previous move to Exchange Servers (instigated last year at
great expense). 

This additional, "bringing into line" contract is only going to take a mere
£60,000,000.00 out of the NHS's budget over the next 5 years (£20,000,000.00
in the first year, £10,000,000 p/a thereafter).

Apparantly the most obvious benefit of this expenditure is that the various
NHS trusts won't have to concern themselves with "complex tendering
processes" if they decided the best way to spend their money was to buy
pointless upgrades to computer systems that will not provide them with any
new functionality (other than a colourful "start" button).  Hmmm, I can see
it would be a shame if the government had to sit back and watch NHS trusts
make decisions about whether or not they really need to spend this money,
and if they did whether or not Microsoft is the most cost effective vendor
for achieving their needs and then put their final decision out for open
tendor.  I mean that would mean the government would have to comply with EU
law and probably wouldn't end up handing huge chunks of public money to
their friends/sponsors at Microsoft.

Hmmm, the labour party.. where do you want to go today?  Enjoy using MSNHS
XP(TM) this year with it's patented Microsoft PatientQueue(TM) technology in
conjunction with Microsoft Government Misinformation Server(TM). Rest
assured that, while you're sitting on a trolley in the corridor because they
can't afford the beds or the nursing staff they desperately need to treat
you, what your suffering from is a "feature" not a "bug" and they'll be with
you just as soon as they've finished rebooting.  You'll be OK, as long as
they don't wheel you behind the Blue Screen!

-- 
geoff.teale at claybrook.co.uk
tealeg at member.fsf.org



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