MS Vista Licensing Speeds Linux Move for NSW OSR

Australia’s NSW Office of State Revenue is speeding it’s transition to a Linux desktop due in part to a lackluster interest in Microsoft’s attempt to lock them into the Software Assurance Program, reports LinuxWorld. The agency’s CIO and manager of client services both confirmed they would start scoping for a move to a Linux desktop within six months. Manager Pravash Babhoota seemed satisfied with a Linux move in their back office, citing Linux costs as being just over 1/6 the projected cost of a Windows upgrade, while processing doubled.

There’s an argument that the only people who actually care about the difference between the two (MS and Linux) are the geeks. I think the distrust of Microsoft, not of their ethics or anything but the quality of their software, is growing in the wilder world as well. For an example, , just go into your nearest whitebox shop and see what the bulk of the repairs are. It’s certainly not hardware failure at the top of the list.

Now MS has done a remarkable job in marketing so far into keeping people dumbed down that it is ‘the computer’s” fault things go wrong, but we are at a tipping point now where people by the millions are realising that it’s MICROSOFT that’s broken. Examples include how XP is unusable with a non-admin account. Maybe it’s not MS’s fault but third party programs. But if MS had not “acclimatised” third party programmers to be in admin mode there won’t be a problem now with non-admin accounts.