A couple of months ago number of large British companies and institutions, including the BBC joined together to put pressure on Microsoft to lower the asking price for continuing to use Windows on their computers. There is now news that they have been joined by the British Government, which would like to spend less on software for its civil servants. On the one side this could herald a move to Linux, on the other one feels that it could just be a bargaining stance to get them a better deal. In fact such large customers already get a substantial discount
on the price private individuals and they have access to Microsoft's technical staff for help with all sorts of problems which other Windows and developers just have to live with. In many ways they get from Microsoft the sort of benefits which others have to move to Open Source software to get. So however much I prefer Linux for myself and would like others to give it a try, I really don't feel any great sympathy for Microsoft's large customers. Using commercial muscle to leaver an extra shave off a supplier during a recession is not altogether taking the moral high ground. is it? On the other hand, any move away from Microsoft by these important customers could have a big effect on people who I do have some affinity for.
The benefit Microsoft gets from its large customers is not simply the cash they pay it. Microsoft has recently offered to accept as punishment that it should give US schools its software free, which some commentators have likened to Brare Rabbit's line "don't through me into the bre'r patch". Microsoft's costs from making extra boxes and CDs would be low, but the gain from parents and future employers buying the operating system which children have learned on would be huge. Large institutions play a role as educators too, but more importantly, everyone else has to work with them. Indeed they have lots of money, so often there is no customer which it is better to work for. In my experience, the first people to get a new version of Microsoft software are translators. A successful translator is one who accepts a file (normally emailed) and sends back the finished file without coming back with questions as to how to read the file. The richer, more high profile, and lucrative the client is, the more that they value not being troubled about things like software versions. Anyone who makes a living by working
Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Microsoft's big customers in Linux is owned by . Permission to republish Microsoft's big customers in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
