Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Dealt Another Big Blow in Europe (UK), Pawns Exposed Further

The monopolist is gradually losing it, despite dirty maneuvers

Last week we saw Microsoft coming under fire in Europe. When one talks about the EU, however, there's a distinction to be made. Brits tend to think of the EU as continental Europe, whose attitude and response to Microsoft has been lukewarm for quite some time, unlike Britain which happily lets itself be shackled by Microsoft.

We won't delve into the politics at play, but if you are curious about what Richard Stallman recently called the "special relationship," referring to Tony Blair and the United States, then do some research on the Bilderberg Group. Both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are members of it and so is the Gates family.

“This has also been a 'Microsoft Shop' budget drain that affects all taxpayers (in terms of wealth and service, which can be a matter of life or death).”While the Microsoft brand name sinks rather badly in most places, Microsoft's brand value in the Britain is still positioned rather highly, according to most surveys. That, however, might begin to change.

We previously covered the British Library fiasco, the BBC's media division (whose head dropped this week), National Archives and even BECTA, whose role has become almost synonymous with "Microsoft training courses" (funded by all taxpayers).

A lot more coverage of Microsoft's grip on the British public sector you will find in this long post from January. We hope never to find another NHS in the making, i.e. one of the worst-ever IT disasters. This has also been a 'Microsoft Shop' budget drain that affects all taxpayers (in terms of wealth and service, which can be a matter of life or death).

Here come the big news reports from London:

London council dumps Microsoft, may go open source instead



NEWHAM LONDON Borough Council has scrapped the controversial 10-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) it signed with Microsoft in 2004 and drawn up a new agreement with a new set of deliverables.


Below we present just a little exposé of those who are typically involved. We try to keep track of Microsoft's corporate 'troopers', not just so-called 'analysts', whom we last addressed yesterday.

The news story above happens to have very high impact, almost in par with that of the London Stock Exchange, which is a total disaster. Only recently they had an outage (yes, the stock market!). To give some self-explanatory information:

London Stock Exchange blames outage on Infolect



[...]

Infolect was launched two years ago in place of the exchange’s London Market Information Link platform. It uses Microsoft .net technology and a SQL Server database, and runs on more than 100 Intel-based 32-bit Proliant servers.


Compare with other recent articles such as these two from last week:



Also recent:



Among article that are just over a year old:



And here is the impact of roughly 320,000,000 Windows PCs that are currently zombies (according to this recent report from USA Today):



The significance of the news from London is great. This happens to be the council which Microsoft used in its notorious "Get the Facts" roadshow around the UK.

They were the first UK Council to pretend they were interested in Open Source, then dump it to get a nice deal out of Microsoft. The MoU they signed formed the basis of the MoU the OGC signed for the Public Sector as a whole. Seems it hasn't worked out quite how Microsoft told them.

Still, Richard Steele's career has prospered. CIO of the year in 2005, Senior Vice President of Socitm, and Microsoft's main mouthpiece (as agreed with them in the MoU) in the UK Public Sector

At Boycott Novell we are still determined to 'Get the Facts' about Newham and Birmingham and the nice little deals Microsoft has done in the UK Public Sector out into the Public Domain. Richard Steele is the centrepiece of Microsoft's game on the Council scene. He's pretty much the most influential guy there and they currently own him.

More recently we also saw Microsoft's [P|G]artner Group fooling others in the UK, which led to backlash. Keep your eyes open. Microsoft is very busy behind the scenes. It has never changed its ways, it just happened to have become more secretive, as far as adopting some strict E-mail-shredding policies in the process.

Recent and related articles:



Recent press release:



Older article:

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Google 'Search' is Fast Becoming No Better Than Social Control Media Infested With Bots
Google emerged almost 30 years ago as a company looking to organise the Web and direct people towards informative pages. That Google is dead.
Before the OSI Was Bribed and Hijacked by Microsoft via GitHub and Compromised Management...
The OSI isn't even remotely "woke"
The OSI Has Been Silent for Over 3 Weeks, It Has a Severe Trust Issue After Promoting Microsoft and Proprietary GitHub
OSI took a lot of money from Microsoft to become a Microsoft lobbyist
Bribery is OK If You Work for Microsoft (No Punishment Expected)
It's very troubling and a symptom of a broken society/system when particular laws or rules are applied and enforced against some people but not against others
Someone Should Remind Microsoft Lunduke That Microsoft Hires Many Sexual Criminals and Pedophiles as Well
Microsoft Lunduke on an "expedition" to find one or more perverts, then generalise to everyone in the "community"
Cash Machines (ATMs) Make Mistakes and They're Proprietary Software
Correcting mistakes is a colossal challenge
Yes, Microsoft is the Problem
"I am no MS shill."
Another Failed Use Case for Chatbots (LLM): Legal Advice and Analysis
They're just some self-discrediting toy that costs way too much to operate
 
Not Owning Mobile Phones
It's not about resistance; it's common sense
PCLinuxOS Had Functional Backups Before the House Fire, the Site Will be Restored in New Webhost
This is the direction we want for GNU/Linux, not some IBM sales strategy
Gemini Links 30/07/2025: Two Sides of Me and "Hooked on Cosmic Voyage"
Links for the day
Microsoft Will Continue Resorting to Crimes in Order to Keep GNU/Linux Usage Down
It is a real problem and we'll revisit it later this week
GAFAM 'Revolving Doors' at The Register and a "Bribe Price List"
"an analyst at Microsoft"
Microsoft Rapidly Shrinking (No, It's Not About Efficiency, It's About Unbearable Debt)
We'll soon see how much debt grew in the past quarter
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 29, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Corruption is the Standard Operating Procedure at the European Patent Office (EPO)
The EPO is a dictatorship that stains Europe
Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) at the European Patent Office (EPO) Requests an Urgent Meeting to Avoid Abolishing the Office
This is dictatorship led by the most corrupt
Slopwatch: Fake 'Linux' 'Articles' and Spamfarms/Slopfarms
at least 5 fake articles in one day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Wayland Unfit for Use and LLM Slop Faking One's Language Skills With Robot Communications
Links for the day
Nailing the "Hey Hi" (AI) Hype Bubble
So-called "hey hi" as they define it now is all about large companies or regimes remotely controlling the processes running on your machine and even your very own behaviour on your machine, which is in effect no longer your machine but some remotely controlled apparatus
"Four decades; Four freedoms; For all users" Now as a T-shirt
That's shown along the sidebar
Links 29/07/2025: Bad Climate and "Fair Software Licensing" Blasts Microsoft
Links for the day
Links 29/07/2025: Data Brokers Gone Wrong/Rogue and "Copyright Thicket"
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linuxconfig.org, Linuxsecurity.com, Fagioli, The Register
Today's "Slopwatch" isn't the first article about LLM slop
We Cover Topics Other Sites Are Too Afraid to Cover (Even When They Know the Facts)
It's not that they doubt the truth, they just realise there may be consequences for talking about it
They Try to Tell Us the Free Software Foundation Inc is Dying, But Its Revenue Doubled Since the Dot-Com Bubble Burst
Being in "Activism" is never easy; but it does positive things for society
It's About the Cost of Workers, Not the Fictional Skills Shortage (That Does Not Exist, the Media Spreads False and Sometimes Self-Fulfilling Narratives)
This issue isn't limited to computing, some dub it "globalism"
Links 29/07/2025: More Pushbacks Against Slop and More Praises of Tom Lehrer
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Purple Yarrow and Understanding Op Amps
Links for the day
This Monday WebProNews Absolutely Flooded the Web With Fake (LLM Slop) 'Articles' About "Linux", Google News Promoted Them as Legitimate
All of the following are fake articles attributed to pseudonyms or authors that don't exist; the images are also slop. Why does Google promote these?
Linuxiac is Not a Slopfarm, But at Least Some of Its Articles Are Machine-Generated Fakes
what we said about it was correct
Expect More Microsoft Layoffs
"Are more job cuts coming?"
Microsoft Behaving Like It's Running Out of Money to Pay Salaries
Does that seem like the behaviour expected from a company which claims it is "worth" trillions?
LWN Downtime Due to Linode, Not LLM Bots
"I’ve received an email letting me know that there is a potential for data loss."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 28, 2025
Nonfree Software in My Bank, by Richard Stallman
Updated 8 hours ago
Links 28/07/2025: Science, Health, and Conflicts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Healthy Self-Image With Autism and a "New Life"
Links for the day
Links 28/07/2025: COVID-19 Sped up Brain Aging, "Circumvention is More Popular Than Compliance"
Links for the day
Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider
LWN Has Been Down for a Long Time, Another Casualty of LLM Bots?
Time will tell. How much time though?
Slopfarms Versus 'Linux' (and Against People Who Write Real Articles About GNU/Linux)
LLM slop in slopfarms by Brian Fagioli and Redazione RHC
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
Links for the day
Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
The Register MS/The Register US
On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025