Will the software giant be more convincing in Paris and stop the French making the swap? Faced with the possibility of losing the French capital, Gates and chums have opted for the same tactic that they used in Bavaria when confronted with customers making eyes at Linux or OpenOffice: agreeing to take a knife to the cost of licences.
According to French daily Libération, in January, Microsoft made an offer to Philipped Schil, the Paris mayoral authorities' director of information technology and systems -- an offer cutting licence prices by around 60 percent for the local government's computers, which meant some 15,000 PCs. In financial terms, the bill for three years would drop from €13.27m to €5.65m.
The overhaul of the Paris administration's IT environment will cost about €160m and will be carried out as part of a three-year framework, from 2004 until 2007. Modernisation has been the order of the day since Bertrand Delanoë took political office in Paris. Delanoë was elected for the Socialist party at the head of a coalition with the Greens in March 2001.
The overhaul could well have prompted the city to look towards Munich, which, following a study from Unilog, decided in May 2003 to replace Windows and other Microsoft products with open-source software.
The Bavarian capital has just agreed on a migration calendar, which will last until 2008. Jens Mühlhaus, a representative of the Greens on the city council, said the decision wasn't taken solely for economic reasons -- strategic and political reasoning had also come into it.
Delanoë's services have also ordered a conversion study from the French Unilog and some of its representatives have been to Munich several times to study the Bavarian initiative.
The estimate seen by Libération was dated from January -- well before Paris went to Unilog France for a study into open source. Rumours of an even greater discount -- to the tune of 80 per cent -- were also circulating.
The IT section of the socialist party, Temps reels, has been loudly calling for open-source software and recently sent an open letter to the Mayor of Paris signed by several of the party's MPs.
When questioned by ZDNet France, the Paris council refused to confirm or deny the figures put forward by Libération
A spokesman said: "This won't be a political decision, however. The study ordered from Unilog is to help us determine the financial consequences and the timeframe and staff training of any eventual migration."
The results of the study will be made public "in the coming weeks" but the decision on whether to migrate or not "won't be necessarily immediate; there isn't a set calendar".
Talkback
Shocking! It turns out Microsoft DON'T need to charge £300 or so for a single copy of Office.
So... has the price become that high because of their monopoly status then? Just maybe?
Well, Microsoft just gave Thailand a discouint of about 90%, so the offer of 60% off is still high.
If Paris stays with Microsoft software they should hold out for a better deal!
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Cut-price Windows to be launched in Thailand
Mike Ricciuti
CNET News.com
June 24, 2004, 16:45 BST
A basic version of Windows XP will be sold to novice computer users in Thailand for about £20
A slimmed-down version of Microsoft's Windows XP will be offered to novice computer users in Thailand from September.
Windows XP Starter Edition will be offered as part of government-sponsored programs intended to provide consumers with more affordable computers, as previously reported. The software will cost 1,490 Thai baht, or roughly £20, according to Microsoft. Windows XP normally sells for several hundred dollars.
Worse than a monopoly, Microsoft acts like a drug cartel, and unlike other "monopolies" (like AT&T, which was forced to cut up it's morp into divisions while competitors were allowed to branch into all of the telecom areas and cable unstopped), Microsoft apparently benefits from folks not wanting to lose money on their own portfolio (or something).
Why else would tehy be allowed to historicly break every rule of anti-monopoly laws in the united states, bullying small ocmpanies into selling out in the face of ruin (like mafia thugs demanding protection money), then hiking the prices (like a drug gang)...then when all are hooked, theyoffer a rebate to keep their addicted clientel?
Has everybody forgotten back when intel was forced to recall all of the chips at their own expense, whileMicrosoft fixed win 98 and resold it as "SE"?
Against my adivce, evreybody I knew lined up for blocks like they were buying tickets for a rock concert to buy the same system a second time.
Now that folks are finally learning, Gates is too big too take down, and they're stuck with the monster they helped create. And I've been asked to produce a manuscript for a friend bevcuase her old PC won't run her printer (that XP also won't run), and a CD of it is also needed.
So...redhat rescues windows by being the only systme here that can read a dinsuar of a system'sfile, reformat it into something XP can read, nad something the printer can read....and since the publihser still uses windowws, this means two comlete copies in different versions.
And Gates watns me to pay a license fee for this stupiditty?