Well, the US has done this in the past and gotten away with it regardless of lawsuits.

The USPS recently formed an alliance with Fed-Ex with a contract that was not up for bid. I agree that there should definitely be bidding over who should get the contract.

In the case of OS choice, the winning contract should be won based on a monetary value and a level of service guarantee with a penalty for failing to meet it.

What a waste.

All Red Hat is going to get out of this at best is a pyrrhic victory.  Even if they prove that this project had a legal obligation to go through a bidding process then the Swiss government is going to step back, put it through the bidding process, and select Microsoft again. 

Soleron said: http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/red-hat-sues-switzerland-over-microsoft-monopoly-965 "£8 million a year to Microsoft, with no public bidding. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, say open source activists Linux vendor Red Hat, and 17 other vendors, have protested a Swiss government contract given to Microsoft without any public bidding. ... The Red Hat group has asked a Swiss federal court to overturn a three-year contract issued to Microsoft by the Swiss Federal Bureau for Building and Logistics, to provide Windows desktops and applications, with support and maintenance, for 14 million Swiss Franc (£8 million) each year. The contract, for "standardised workstations", was issued with no public bidding process, Red Hat's legal team reports in a blog - because the Swiss agency asserted there was no sufficient alternative to Microsoft products. Red Hat and others have made the obvious response that there are plenty of alternatives to Microsoft, and the current situation makes them more attractive than ever, according to a report issued this week by Freeform Dynamics." EDIT: Title should say 18 companies.   My take: This is why Microsoft continues to have a monopoly in the home OS market. Unlike any other product or contract, governments and businesses don't even look at alternatives when making software purchases. The report concerns Switzerland, but this sort of favoured contracting goes on in most countries, unopposed. My own country (UK) has an exclusive contract with MS to provide OSs for all government IT. The 'bidding process' for this only consisted of choosing which vendor supplies the computers with it preloaded. How can alternatives compete if there is no outlet to do so, and even, like Red Hat, giving it away for FREE isn't good enough to be selected?

because the cost of training the workforce to use, and support red hat linux would cost more then covering windows being inadequate. I wish it were not so, but every day it comes to my attention that people  just dont have the will or smarts maybe to learn something new 

 

put it this way, when asking for approval from the security group to instal a VPN solution on a vista 64-bit OS ... the reply was sure 64 bit is more secure right ..... thankfully it was a moot point after talking with the network team we had no licenses for the needed software to meet our security requirements 

 

or hey how about this..... you mean I cant use acrobat reader to save alter, change PDFs .....   

 

this is why red hat dose not work right now you need to get it into the school systems, but they will claim no one will use it at work its a catch 22 

 

ssj12 said: Kasz216 said: Why would a government want to use something else? That'd be stupid. Government computers need to "just work"... you aren't going to train government officals to use linux... and you aren't even going to be able to train them how to modify their files so they'll be readable elsewhere. It only makes sense for governments to use windows. Furthermore it'd be stupidly expensive to transition over all the stuff to Linux/Mac OS anwyay. Government computers dont just need to "just work." They need to be secure and efficient enough to handle whatever tasks are at hand from monitoring governmental activities to being able to handle video conferences with other national leaders. Also tell me where you understand the costs of transitioning between OS to OS because the move for any government or company who refused to move to Vista are going to have a hell of a time moving from XP to 7 since it cannot simply upgrade the OS like the installer for Vista does. Expenses for these upgrades will be way cheaper even during the initial transition as no one has to upgrade PC hardware as they might have to moving from one Microsoft OS to another. Linux does not take half the resources needed to run even XP.

Linux does not offer quite the selection of custom tailored applications that goverments have paid for over the years either

 

Im a mac fan so dont take it too hard i have heard all these arguments before... it comes down to cost, and its not beneficial at the moment see my prior post for more...

 

edit there are still free licenses for NeXTSTeP out there, I feel they should run those, its CPU independent (depending on release your working with )

 

 

goddog said: ssj12 said: Kasz216 said: Why would a government want to use something else? That'd be stupid. Government computers need to "just work"... you aren't going to train government officals to use linux... and you aren't even going to be able to train them how to modify their files so they'll be readable elsewhere. It only makes sense for governments to use windows. Furthermore it'd be stupidly expensive to transition over all the stuff to Linux/Mac OS anwyay. Government computers dont just need to "just work." They need to be secure and efficient enough to handle whatever tasks are at hand from monitoring governmental activities to being able to handle video conferences with other national leaders. Also tell me where you understand the costs of transitioning between OS to OS because the move for any government or company who refused to move to Vista are going to have a hell of a time moving from XP to 7 since it cannot simply upgrade the OS like the installer for Vista does. Expenses for these upgrades will be way cheaper even during the initial transition as no one has to upgrade PC hardware as they might have to moving from one Microsoft OS to another. Linux does not take half the resources needed to run even XP. Linux does not offer quite the selection of custom tailored applications that goverments have paid for over the years either   Im a mac fan so dont take it too hard i have heard all these arguments before... it comes down to cost, and its not beneficial at the moment see my prior post for more...   edit there are still free licenses for NeXTSTeP out there, I feel they should run those, its CPU independent (depending on release your working with )

Well if Linux doesn't have the program, make it. Linux specialist and coders should easily be able to write up whats needed. The sad part is Microsoft experts would be screwed as most are technologically stupid. The last Microsoft certified tech I dealt with couldn't figure out how to setup a basic network for my high school.. freaking retard sat there flipping through manuals all day. Took me and three others to network our engineering lab. What was his excuse.

naughty dog have linux servers.
and they love it >_o
its FAST!.

linux servers are better, but if microsoft keeps paying for companies for not including it they loose marketshare even with a better product.

ssj12 said: kowenicki said: Thats pathetic. Why should they have to consider an alternatrive/. I wonder what operating system Sony, Philips and countless other companies use as a standard for their office and admin staff, do they tender? no, they buy MS and get on with it. Envy is a terrible thing. SSJ12... why do you hope that? Simple, it opens the door for more competition in the OS market. Do you not think that Apple or any of the Linux distros wouldn't enjoy the chance to expand their markets?

 

also goverments are forced by laws to enforce competition.

ACP (panama canal authority) have to USE both, AMD and Intel, for their PCs, they can't choose only one brand, also for notebooks, its either dell , HP or toshiba.

but corruption it's big everywhere, and microsoft its quick to go to the head so they get choose and they don't look for alternatives when they exist.

so in their intranet they have outlook for mail and microsoft for everything else.

ssj12 it is about choice with more vendors there is competition And MS cannot squeeze all the money out of their customers

Videogirl said: Wow all this fuss for £8 million a year ? People should chill a bit here. Switzerland is a completely decentralized country and each administration/state has it's own way of functionning. In my state for exemple from elementary to professional schools and University all are equipped by Machintosh and we pay a lot more than £9 million a year but we've never seen the Red-Hat Group complaining. It is said in the article those 8 millions are spent by the Swiss Federal Bureau for Building and Logistics which is a very small part of our Federal administration.

You need to listen to her.

Also, imagine that the Swiss Federal Bureau for Building and Logistics needs to be able to work with all the other Bureaus of the government, and I don't think that having a different OS would be very useful in that case.