The Register: Shush! OSS Outfit Forms Secret Society to Combat MS Hit Teams

“Netproject, the consultancy whose open source desktop pilot
triggered large discounts from Microsoft for Newham Borough Council
has formed an ‘Incubator Club’ for organisations considering an
open source switch. The membership of the club is being kept
confidential, says Netproject’s Eddie Bleadsale, because ‘we don’t
want the proprietary vendors to approach members before they have
had time to fully evaluate open source.’ This we deduce as a
reference to one proprietary vendor in particular, but not (hello
Sun, hello IBM) exclusively to that one vendor.

“Newham itself concedes that it was able to negotiate with some
strength because of the pilot, and its willingness to implement it,
while Netproject says that: ‘Reacting to to Netproject’s credible
and practical approach, Microsoft completely changed their attitude
towards Newham. They have made many concessions on licensing costs
and support. Newham will benefit significantly from these Microsoft
concessions but will keep their options open by continuing to
evaluate the use of open source through the Netproject
demonstrator…'”

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