Victorian Government Microsoft's $23 million Vista patsy: consultant

Stan Beer
Thursday, 25 October 2007 13:52

Business IT - Open Source

"Journalist after journalist, industry analyst after analyst has seen fit to warn consumers and business off Vista. In but one example, the influential Dutch Consumers’ Counsel has warned its constituents to avoid Vista, after receiving over 5000 complaints about Vista in only a single month. Vista is a quagmire for most users, but Education Victoria are happy to be Microsoft's patsy and waste Victorian taxpayer money in the process," said Zymaris.

"Rather than look to Vista, school districts across North America, Europe, East Asia, India, South America and Africa, are moving away from Windows to Linux. The Russian government is moving all schools across to Linux in 2009. There are hundreds of thousands of educational Linux systems in Spain.

"Linux and open source delivers a broader range of technologies to schools and pupils, because one of the great advantages of Linux and open source software is that schools can now afford all forms of technical, graphical, educational and business apps - it's all free software after all. This in turn leads to better educational outcomes.

"Open source software also leads to positives for those local ICT industries, as billions of dollars aren't sucked out of the coffers of school districts, to pay for Microsoft licence fees," Zymaris said."

In addition, Zymaris claims that the Victorian Education Department does not even need to pay Microsoft for the software it receives from the company. Instead, it could even be demanding money from Microsoft.

"The funny thing is, Microsoft would probably pay handsomely to ensure that school children learn Microsoft products and not alternatives like Linux and open source. Instead of using this fact to demand that Microsoft covers the costs involved in deploying Microsoft's wares, the Victorian Department of Education is actually paying $23 million in Microsoft licence fees alone," claimed Zymaris.

"By subverting the power of competitive markets, the Department of Education is hurting local platform vendors. By keeping innovative technology off school desks and by adopting Vista, they're wasting taxpayer money. And by stubbornly refusing to seriously consider alternative technologies such as Linux and open source, they are shackling themselves to the Microsoft upgrade treadmill in perpetuity," concluded Zymaris.