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

GNU/Linux Adoption in Africa, a Passageway Towards Freedom From Neo-Colonialism
Digi(tal)-Colonialism and/or Techolonialism are a thing. Can Africa flee the trap?
 
There's Nothing "Funny" About Attacking Free Speech and Software Freedom
persistent focus on the principal issues is very important
Professor Eben Moglen Explained How Software Patent Threats Had Changed Around 2014 (Alice Case) and What Would Happen Till 2025
clip aged reasonably well
CNN Contributes to Demolition of the Open Web
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Eben Moglen on Encryption and Anonymity
The alternate net we need, and how we can build it ourselves
Yet More Microsofters Inside the Board of Mozilla (Which Has Just Outsourced Firefox Development to Microsoft's Proprietary Prison)
Do you want a browser controlled (and spied on) by such a company?
IRC Proceedings: Monday, December 04, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, December 04, 2023
GNU/Linux Now Exceeds 3.6% Market Share on Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
things have changed for Windows in China
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 05/12/2023: Debt Brake in Germany and Layoffs at Condé Nast (Reddit, Wired, Ars Technica and More)
Links for the day
[Meme] Social Control Media Giants Shaping Debates on BSDs and GNU/Linux
listening to random people in Social Control Media
Reddit (Condé Nast), Which Has Another Round of Layoffs This Month, Incited People Against GNU/Linux Users (Divide and Rule, It's 2003 All Over Again!)
Does somebody (perhaps a third party) fan the flames?
Who Will Hold the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Accountable for Taking Bribes From Microsoft and Selling Out to Enable/Endorse Massive Copyright Infringement?
it does Microsoft advocacy
Using Gemini to Moan About Linux and Spread .NET
Toxic, acidic post in Gemini
Web Monopolist, Google, 'Pulls a Microsoft' by Hijacking/Overriding the Name of Competitor and Alternative to the Web
Gulag 'hijacking' 'Gemini'
Links 04/12/2023: Mass Layoffs at Spotify (Debt, Losses, Bubble) Once Again
Links for the day
ChatGPT Hype/Vapourware (and 'Bing') Has Failed, Google Maintains Dominance in Search
a growing mountain of debt and crises
[Meme] Every Real Paralegal Knows This
how copyright law works
Forging IRC Logs and Impersonating Professors: the Lengths to Which Anti-Free Software Militants Would Go
Impersonating people in IRC, too
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 03, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, December 03, 2023
GNU/Linux Popularity Surging, So Why Did MakeUseOf Quit Covering It About 10 Days Ago?
It's particularly sad because some of the best articles about GNU/Linux came from that site, both technical articles and advocacy-centric pieces
Links 04/12/2023: COVID-19 Data Misused Again, Anti-Consumerism Activism
Links for the day
GNOME Foundation is in Reliable Hands (Executive Director)
Growing some good in one's garden
Links 03/12/2023: New 'Hey Hi' (AI) Vapouware and Palantir/NHS Collusion to Spy on Patients Comes Under Legal Challenge
Links for the day
'Confidential Computing'? More Like a Giant Back Door.
CacheWarp AMD CPU Attack Grants Root Access in Linux VMs
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 02, 2023
IRC logs for Saturday, December 02, 2023
Links 03/12/2023: CRISPR as Patented Minefield, Lots of Greenwashing Abound
Links for the day