Edmonton considers divorcing Microsoft

How did i guess the microsoft shills would show up? I commend them for taking a stand. I work in a environment where we have to spend a small fortune on MS stuff as well - Its not my decision to do it, and if i had my dithers I would be going the same route. The endless stream of $$$ to MS has got to stop. Upgrade after upgrade.. now the upgrades do not provide enough of a change to really warrant the effort involved in testing/deploying it.. as soon as your getting close - another upgrade. While it's great job security so to speak, I'd like a small but meaningful break in between.

It's just a matter of time before all the naysayers realize that much sooner, rather than much later, the world will have abandoned Microsoft and its notoriously insecure, proprietary software.

Sooner, rather than later, everyone will join the open source movement.

The biggest benefit of OSS is that its 0-day exploits are patched quickly (minutes, hours, a few days, perhaps) as opposed to the 90 day patch Tuesdays (assuming MSFT deems the exploit valid, patchable, and worthy of patchability....)

Why wait? Come over to the light now....

cheers,

I feel that Chris Moore and City of Edmonton are short sighted in their IT Vision and Strategy, having assisted many public sector organizations in implementing standards based applications, platforms and frameworks the decision by The City of Edmonton to move completely away from the Microsoft Platforms will end up with the taxpayers who will have to bear the burden of this decision for many years to come in increased long-term support, security and systems management costs.

Businesses looking to save money, open source software might seem like a way to cut costs. But on closer inspection, firms are discovering the hidden costs of open source and how Microsoft represents the most economical option for their productivity and collaboration needs.

With open source, there is lots of little niggly things that individually may not seem like a big deal, but quickly added up to major inconveniences – like the lack of automatic updates and security patches that forced companies to rely on pricey third parties to perform upgrades, or the difficulty of exchanging OpenOffice documents with employees and customers running different systems.

Our experience is that companies running Open Source also felt vulnerable to security breaches because of the less stringent authentication protocols compared with Microsoft Windows. Software is supposed to make your life easier, not harder.

Sourcing IT staff is infinitely easier for Microsoft Platforms as you can draw from a far larger pool of candidates with Microsoft skills rather than having to scour for the niche specialists needed to administer open-source systems.

Don’t believe the hype about open source. It’s seductive, but misleading, and could lead a company into a mistake they can ill-afford to make in today’s economy.

You save money up front, but over the long haul you’ll pay more. The message is, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. You can get a CD off a magazine cover, stick it in a machine, and have your operating system, but if you want to actually do anything with it and make it bulletproof enough to withstand the rigors of corporate use, it’s going to cost a lot of money and require considerable work.

I look forward to when Chris Moore leaves the City of Edmonton and the work his replacement will have to do to fix the mess which was created!! On the flip side the current employees will have great job security till then.

Countdown to tar and feather party in 5..4..3..

Government workers, and especially LOCAL government workers are some of the dumbest people on the planet (probably only second to UAW workers) and will fight even the tiniest change in their work routine to the bitter end.

I predict that Edmonton will spend oodles of money on the switch, spend a year or so making great predictions on how great it will be and how much money they'll eventually save (because of course they aren't saving any money now - all the money they're saving on propriatary license plus a lot more will be spent on the so called "open source experts" and their snail-esque bill-by-the-hour consulting fees), then after all that time and money and energy and emotional whining is spent, they'll go crawling back to Microsoft.

How many times have we read this exact same scenario (with the exact same outcome that I listed above).

Good for you! I'm pleased we have forward thinkers in our local government. This sort of activity not only strengthens our local economy by directly paying individuals for talent, it also builds that technical community of talent, which in turn offers more incentive for software development companies to operate out of our city (ie. access to programmers and designers). Smart move Edmonton.

All I can say to Edmonton, is good luck ... using Google software, boy, it won't last.

I certainly hope that Moore is thoroughly thinking through the big picture. While open source software certainly has a much lower acquisition cost, the cost of support contracts, consultants, training and available IT talent all have a substantial impact on the total operating cost. I also get the sense in the article that he’s planning to leave workstations unmanaged. An “any platform” workstation or laptop that people can use as their home and work machine is a pipedream and huge mistake. Unmanaged and non-standardized machines make help desk’s job nearly impossible and provides a wonderful platform for malware introduction into the environment. Thank goodness the City of Edmonton doesn’t have any of my personal information on their network. A mishmash of open source products and an unmanaged variety of client machines will make ensuring security impossible. I wish them luck!