On Wed, 2004-11-03 at 11:42, Tim Churches wrote: > It actually says that Microsoft are generously going to throw in GBP40m > worth of NHS-specific interface design R&D on top of the GBP500m > licensing deal.
Thanks for pointing out my error. Of course, as you noted, the marginal costs for software licenses is quite small so guess where the 40m really comes from? I'm quite certain MS wouldn't toss in 40m in custom R&D without the 500m deal. > It would have been much more canny for the NHS to give GBP40m to UK > universities to develop portable NHS interface specifications, and then > license those specifications to Microsoft and other vendors (with maybe > a royalty-free license for open source developers/vendors). This was exactly my thoughts as well. 40m would buy a lot of open source interface design and implementation. All the while keeping the money in the country and supporting local universities. > But no doubt the NHS NPfIT people feel very smug over the notional BP300M in > Microsoft license fees they have saved, despite the fact that the > marginal cost of providing additional licenses is very small, and thus > the notional savings are about as long as a piece of string. Yep, politicians ergard themselves very highly over huge wins like this. <smirk!> > The problem is that they have massive funding, approved personally by > Blair, which is burning a hole in their pocket - and each day that > Blair's political fortunes worsen, the faster the hole is burnt. I am > sure they feel that they need to sign contracts which lock-in that > health IT refurbishment expenditure as quickly as possible. An issue I hadn't considered....... > The question > is, could any vendor have come up with a contract offer to swap 500,000 > NHS desktops from Microsoft to Linux and OpenOffice and other open > source within 3 years, including the porting of all the Windows-specific > health software. A rhetorical question no doubt. [preaching to the choir alert] Why is it that they haven't yet figured out that they are on a treadmill? They must take a longer term view if they are to break this vendor lock-in, upgrade on demand cycle. > If such a deal were signed, you could be sure that > Microsoft would do everything it could to screw the NHS over any > Microsoft licenses that needed renewal during the transition period - > and any blow-out in the transition period would just worsen the > Microsoft retribution against the NHS, which might also include > Microsoft-backed court or administrative review challenges to the > contracting process in order to delay progress. A very likely scenario as well. > I suspect that the Midgley Linux desktops will remain a rarity in the > NHS world, and that the NHS trial of the Sun Linux desktop, which > presumably is still proceeding, is now a purely specious exercise. I suspect with short term thinking, open source consultant comments like those from Mr. Eddie Bleasdale of www.netproject.com the Midgley Linux desktops aren't getting much local support in the UK. Maybe the reporter took the comment out of context. Later, -- Tim Cook, FOSS for Healthcare TAPAS - http://sourceforge.net/projects/tap-apps/ EGADSS - http://www.egadss.org NSMobile - http://www.nsmobile.org TORCH - https://sourceforge.net/projects/op-torch/
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