The Register: MS Moves to Counter Open Source Growth in UK Gov

“Faced with the possibility of open source making a damaging
breakthrough in UK local government, Microsoft has reacted in the
usual way, with strong money. But this time around that money could
be being shrewdly spent and–so far so good–there’s currently no
sign of Steve Ballmer.

“One of the organisations involved in the UK government’s open
source trials is Newham Borough Council, which was already
evaluating open source software when the trials were announced, and
earlier this year there was a considerable amount of publicity
about the possibility of Newham switching its desktops to open
source. Microsoft certainly wouldn’t welcome any local government
losses to open source, but the possibility of losing the desktop is
particularly worrying for the company, because that’s where it
makes an awful lot of money…”

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