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SOURCES CLOSE TO the government of Israel have provided us with the raison d'etre behind its decision to stop buying Microsoft software.
And as usual in life, the reasons are banal rather than sinister, and speak more to bureaucracy than software evangelism.
The sources tell the INQUIRER that this is what happened. The Israeli Ministry of Finance was the body that held the contracts with Microsoft, and other software firms for that matter.
The old deal was that the MoF paid $175 a year per client to run Vole client software including Office and network clients per seat ? in other words those that need that kind of licence.
But Microsoft and MoF fell out because it wanted the cost to be $130 and that wasn't a price the Vole wanted to charge.
The MoF more or less said to the software behemoth: "You're on your own, buddies, and settle a deal with each separate ministry, separately".
Oh, and we need to approve the deals you strike with the different ministries before it will get the rubber stamp, because "we are the treasurers".
Every ministry now has to negotiate for its own software from its own budget, knowing that its own budget is controlled by the MoF.
And that forced the other ministries, their hand forced by the battle royal between MoF and the behemoth, to collaborate with each other.
Which they've been doing willy-nilly now they see the advantages of Open Office and Linux because they're not getting their dose of Microsoft for nothing, as in days of yore.
There. We told you it was banal, didn't we?
Source:
The INQ!
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