[Linux-aus] Re: [osv-list]Danish government on OS

[Con Zymaris]

On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 09:54:28AM +0200, linux-aus at amos.mailshell.com wrote:
> Con Zymaris wrote:
> 
> >On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 11:07:04PM +1100, Nathan Bailey wrote:
> > 
> >
> >
> >(feel free to disseminate)
> > 
> >
> (report about danish report deleted)
> 
> Is there any concentrated site/page of all these links?
> 
> I mean - I don't know if this has reached Australia yet, but Microsoft 
> has launched a world
> wide "Get the facts" campaign (http://www.microsoft.com/getthefacts). It 
> leans
> on MS funded "research" trying to convince the crowd that MS is cheaper 
> than FOSS.


You can spend days producing a response to this assemblage of 'facts' from
Microsoft. We have better, more constructive tasks to focus our attention
on than replying a 'tit' for every Microsoft 'tat'. Remember, they have 
paid weenies to shoot chaff decoys, 24 x 7, enough to keep us on a 
pointless treadmill.

I find that in business groups, to whom the "Get the facts" website is
aimed at, the following snippet is enough to raise considerable doubt in
the whole Microsoft process and in all the 'reports', even of the
independent ones.

The core document that Microsoft has been touting as a response to Linux
business viability, for over 15 months now, and the 'anchor' of the whole
"Get the facts"  site, is the IDC Linux vs Windows TCO report.

Rather than throw responses about each claim and data point in that report
at the audience, until their-eyes-glazeth-over, just show them this:

The author of the report that Microsoft mentions, Dan Kusnetzky, has made
it clear that this report that Microsoft commissioned was designed to show
Linux in a less than favourable light. The following appeared in a recent
BusinessWeek article:

 Yet even this tactic seems to be backfiring. One of the study's authors 
 accuses Microsoft of stacking the deck. IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky says 
 the company selected scenarios that would inevitably be more costly using 
 Linux. Also, he believes Windows should be cheaper to operate, since it 
 has been around longer, giving Microsoft more time to develop software to 
 manage the operating system. "Microsoft has had a lot more time to work 
 on this. I wonder why the win wasn't bigger," Kusnetzky says. 

(Source: 
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_09/b3822610_tc102.htm)

-- 
_____________________________________________________________________________
Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne, Australia 
Cybersource: Australia's Leading Linux and Open Source Solutions Company 
Web: http://www.cyber.com.au/  Phone: 03 9621 2377   Fax: 03 9621 2477