[Reader-list] Microsoft licenses and Dutch government

[Steef Heus]

As I posted recently Microsoft won contracts in several European countries
for developing E-Goverment solutions (a.o. the city of The Hague in The
Netherlands).

But this week I read an article that will put some pressure on MS:

The introduction of Office XP and its license policy has a great impact on
the IT costs of local authorities in The Netherlands. The IT managers
platform of the Local Authorities Association made a statement that they
will delay/cancel upgrade to XP in order to avoid an estimated increase of
operational costs of 50%. They also announced that they will undertake
actions to become less dependent on MS's products only and will do a serious
study on the availability and usability of alternatives, like StarOffice and
other Operating Systems.

Also the MS license contract with one of the ministeries is expiring. They
sent out a tender to the industry and did not silently sign a new contract
with MS as in the past.

The above is in line with developments amongst IT managers associations of
the Commercial industry in The Netherlands. The opposition towards the
dominant position of MS and their arrogant licensing policy opens the door
for serious alternatives. They will be looked at more seriously by
organisations and for vendors it becomes more attractive to develop them.

The more dominant MS thinks it is, the more arrogant their pricing/licensing
policy will become, thus creating lots of windows of opportunities for other
initiatives. Just give it a few years.

Steef