How much do UK cops pay for Microsoft licences? £30 a head or £137? Both Coppers are wasting millions on negotiated software licences, with some forces paying more than four times more than other constabularies of a similar size for Oracle and Microsoft licences, The Register can reveal. According to a Freedom of Information response from 10 police forces of differing sizes, some constabularies …
Classic salesperson technique:
Person A asks for quote, gets a decent quote, agree's to quote and pays money.
Person B asks for quote, messes around and wastes everyones time, 9 months later comes back in a blind panic as they have days before the entire thing collapses on them - gets quoted full price and then some because they've been so damn annoying, they have no choice but to accept.
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"Much though I love Linux, the idea of a distro originated by the government sounds like sheer hell."
Perhaps, but I'm sure you get the general gist of what I am saying!
I was of course making the naive assumption that they would put someone in charge of that who knows what they are doing, and would them alone to actually do their job!
This month we will be rolling out the latest version of GovLinux.
Hopefully you will all appreciate the advances in usability and functionality that Malignant Morons has over the previous three versions, Junket Jackdaws, Kamikaze Kakistocracy and Loathsome Leeches.
Very tough question to answer, and a lot of the response is uncomfortable...
Databases first: All Government hage a HUGE library of legacy applications. THis means that any migration to a new technology stack would require an extensive period of parallel running and full redevelopment of the legacy applications and processes. This is stunningly expenive, ridiculously hard to resource, and prone to catastrophic failure, as it is an all or nothing solution. This also ignores the productivity bonuses that using Oracle toolsets can give: we estimate our programmers are four times (seriously - we tested it) using Oracle ApEx than pure Java for front end: this also means that future development on Open Source will, until someone releases a similarly comprehensive IDE toolset, be four times as expensive.
As for Microsoft, sadly the compatibility issue strikes again: not just for Office (the recent insistence on external compatibility with ODF is a start) but for the other applications that Councils, Agencies, NDPBs and Departments use like confetti: don't run on Linux, and nothing similar available (yet).
Moving to FOSS based desktop is in my sights, but never seems to get appreciably closer.
Gutted.
Sometimes, just sometimes, buying in a licence to use an already created and supported product is cheaper than having to hire in (and be at the support mercy of) your own internal staff. I might not like that myself being as it will probably result in my needing to find new work; but if I was paying the bills as we are indirectly as tax payers; I'd want the best value. If that means buying in rather than internal development then so be it. The real question should be why there are 42 separate contracts - it's not hard to do and would save a fortune.
Honestly? The actual non-fanboy of any description answer? The genuine reason?
Oracle is probably peer-pressure. It's like nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. Oracle is, to an exec, "reassuringly expensive".
Microsoft? Probably because they were cheapest, and no, I'm not kidding. If an individual police force went to Red Hat and asked for everything they currently got from MS including the level of support it would a) probably not be possible and b) cost about three times as much. And that's for "free" software.
I'm going to get downvoted to oblivion for this. Still true though.
Redhat support is second to none and they even support Microsoft Windows. You need fewer Linux guys to support an estate than you do Windows guys because it works (Linux is big enough to run the most powerful computers in the world so a desktop use barely tickles it).
I know some of you are going to mention that some software doesn't run on Linux so I will address that in this post too. Linux can run most software designed for Windows nowadays including Photoshop. MS Office is not very well supported but honestly, it is unreliable software and the Linux equivalents are not unreliable.
Good government organisations and good companies are switching to Linux for desktop use. You can argue all you want be you would be wrong to do so.
I really hope that Microsoft create a Linux based version of Windows and open source their propitiatory code - It looks like they are heading to cloud based services for Windows so they would not care about the actual desktop operating system once they have done that.
Here is a trip i had into libre office last week. I needed to install libre office onto 90 PCs. Libre office has an msi so gpo installation is easy peasy. Made my transform in orca and away i went.
Msi failed to install. No error. Installing manually yielded no errors but no installation. Made no difference with transforms (vm test machine reaet between tries of course). Open office installed manually as gpo rollout of open office is a job of frustration.
Had the apprentice go back through versions and try older ones. Turned out an old version of 4 worked and after uninstall new 5 would work.
Image is pretty clean and lightweight (it has office 2013 on it) but the screwaround was a pain. No errors anywhere to suggest why it wasnt working (msi log file simply returned a success, no errors at all but no files actually copied)
I do try open source but sometimes it is hardly cut and shut. (I havent tried to configure network templates based on OUs yet or dictionary lockdowns for exam accounts etc). I am yet to find an alternative to outlook that works (i suppose OWA would count)
Serif has cheap enough software and pageplus/photoplus are good enough for the publisher addicts and decent enough to teach with. Paint.net is a staple lightweight basic editor. MySQL is cheaper than MSsql and just as useful for smaller firms. But im still using exchange for email.
@dogged
>If an individual police force went to Red Hat and asked for everything they currently got from MS including the level of support it would a) probably not be possible and b) cost about three times as much.
Why are you spewing this bs again, I already explained to you that you are TOTALLY mistaken.
The price for RedHat support looks more expensive on paper, however, you have no separate APP licenses, no Exchange server licenses, not MS SQL server licenses, no CALS.
Same for the workstations (clients), the support prices include an Office suite, MS Office costs more per client than RedHat with support.
Then, you have Oracle Linux support, which is cheaper than RedHat, who'd da thunk - Oracle Linux is a RedHat fork.
Suse support Licenses are cheaper than RedHat as well .... Ubuntu is even cheaper than Suse. I am sure that a big enterprise like NHS or UK Police force could get heavy volume discounts on top of all this.
Then you have a myriad of smaller vendors selling Linux or FreeBSD support.
> The price for RedHat support looks more expensive on paper, however, you have no separate APP licenses, no Exchange server licenses, not MS SQL server licenses, no CALS.
Also no familiarity so you're looking at training (is that included in the price? No? What a surprise) and big holes in your software portfolio that you'll have to pay a developer to fill or simply go without, which I'm sure won't cost you productivity in any way at all.
It. Costs. More.
Get over it.
As other people have already said - there is no "UK Police Force" - there's 43 in England, PSNI, Police Scotland and I'm not sure about Wales.
There isn't a single "NHS" to buy things. In my county, there is the Clinical Commissioning Group (admin types who buy in services), 2 Acute hospital trusts (1 in the north of the county, one in the south), and shedloads of individual GP practices. All of whom negotiate and purchase for themselves only. Some practices may have 2 or 3 GPs, some practices may have 4 or 5 sites each with 4 or 5 GPs. Most use one of three different systems, so no volume here.
Ditto Education - 350 odd schools, mostly working on their own - OK, they get good deals from MS, but it's not like there is any joined up thinking here!
Whilst it would be nice to have someone negotiate the volume discounts, at the moment, there are too many egos and too much chance of a turfwar for it to happen.
Same reason anyone buys these products. Because they believe them worth it.
If there was an all encompassing reason to use Linux and PostgreSQL, then Microsoft and Oracle wouldn't sell anything to anyone, ever. Why pay money for something you can have for free?
Yet somehow they manage.
"reasurringly expensive" does indeed sum it up
I guess its all down to a niggling feeling that businesses (especially public ones) are just throwing cash at problems because its easier.
This is why all purchases for businesses cost much more than the same item bought for a domestic home - sure it may be slightly sturdier , and the warranty might be a grade above domestic , but you pay, and pay heavily.
I think the upper management prefer simplicity , security , and continuity over profits. Perhaps understandably. Even though their whole raeson d'etre is to get profits up - they want a smooth safe ride to do it.
Hence outsourcing, and temp contractors where payroll pay the agency that "found" the contractor more per week than the contractor - even though the troops on the ground knew who they wanted already. Convenience.
@ac
Massive companies / organisations tend to care about meeting an obligation regardless of cost.
Smaller companies care more about the cost. I've never seen an outsource deal that is cheaper, often it's about transferring cost and therefore profit overseas where tax is cheaper.
When it comes to government it's due to egos, prestige of managing large budgets and justifying a wage and after a few years down the line not understanding the real true cost providing a service.
It is genuinely cheaper to outsource the specified requirements, it's the add ons required to actually delver the service that cost more, the add ons not specified in the original contract because those signing the contract had no clue they where required.
"If only there was a standardised Linux based in the UK."
I don't know today's situation but there certainly used to be a UK-originated POSIX.1-compliant Linux.
Lasermoon [1]. RIP.
Unfortunately the 'leading' industry players seem to have abandoned the idea of standards conformance unless it's their (proprietary?) standards. Odd.
[1] http://www.cbronline.com/news/lasermoon_touts_inexpensive_standard_linux_system_for_scientific_academic_users_unix_95_branding_in_prospect
Anyone with a clue knows that free software isn't free.
Free means paying someone's time to implement & support with no guarantee or warranty. That critical system on free software will not stand up to scrutiny. Running fedora server and get hacked, who do you call to fix it fedora or pay red hat, suddenly free is costing you and is therefore not free.
Are you going to run That critical off the shelf system that's got support when used with oracle or ms database on MySQL? who will support it fails?
Free is great when it's backed by paid support despite how much you pay the consultant to install it.
If it's important you need assurance, which is what you get from paid for licenses.
Fail. Not "free" as in "no cost"...
[free]
adjective, freer, freest.
1. enjoying personal rights or liberty, as a person who is not in slavery:
2. pertaining to or reserved for those who enjoy personal liberty:
3. existing under, characterized by, or possessing civil and political liberties that are, as a rule, constitutionally guaranteed by representative government:
4. enjoying political autonomy, as a people or country not under foreign rule; independent.
5. exempt from external authority, interference, restriction, etc., as a person or one's will, thought, choice, action, etc.; independent; unrestricted:
6. able to do something at will; at liberty:
Sigh.
7. clear of obstructions or obstacles, as a road or corridor:
How many more times are El Reg going to publish this nonsense where apples and oranges are compared?
For a start, the police are covered by the Microsoft/CCS MOU so there is only one price for all of that. And then what will change is how they are buying it to suit local needs and when. Some might be 'getting their Microsoft free;. When they are on 'holiday' and sweating a perpetual asset.
It's off topic but it's been bothering me for a while and I've yet to see it addressed anywhere. Comments appreciated.
If, as is well reported, Windows 10 is effectively keylogging typed data, which Microsoft, ahem, assures us is not attributable to a particular user. What happens if the typed data itself contains confidential information of a criminal/medical/private nature and includes names, addresses, telephone numbers etc. Does this not mean that most state/governmental/council etc. organisations should be looking for an alternative to Windows 10?
I really don't understand why constabularies are negotiating their prices individually, other public sector organisations such as Universities have consortiums either regionally or nationally to negotiate pricing and account deals with suppliers.
Surely there's no reason this shouldn't be the case for the Police and any other public sector bodies. I'm sure the cost of staffing such a consortium would be less than the savings they would achieve.
For the most part they don't... but that would'n make a good news story.
There is always some spend off-framework, but that's rarely the issue - compare start and end dates, and versions being used, and the support models, and the true picture would *start* to emerge.
The headline bills tell you nothing of interest.
Corporations have to eat too...
so do the self-entitled sociopaths that treat wall street as an ATM
so companies like Microsoft and and Oracle have to screw their hostages err customers as hard as possible. At some point their big customers will realise that they can save wads of cash (even factoring in migration) and walk away - even down here in the colonies i've seen this - they hand over the cash and don't ask questions (of themselves let alone Microsoft et al)
the other aggravating factor esp in the public sector is if the departments don't spend the cash, they get their budgets cut..
Goverments buy a PC from say Crapita with windows installed and then Crapita image it with Select version of same OS so they can charge them twice for the OS.
These sites rarely have roaming applications because their external server teams are clueless IMHO and cause more problems than they solve and so everything is imaged by hand complete with a generic application set and usually the wrong drivers.
Typically on the same site external project management are not IT competent and so every project has to be billed as so many days, no plan or schedule just it will take this long if all goes well. Again typically the project assessor and the implementer are usually not the same people and so the projects are rarely the period quoted. "sorry [ insert BS excuse] it is going to take longer and cost more" .
Win Win for external IT support especially when the customer is forced to buy everything from them, if they didnt know this then they still have to buy the Select licenses and then machine suffers lots of unexplained problems and problems with support as the seller wont touch it and the external support blame the seller. "naughty naughty you forgot we own you"
In my experience the best IT support is in house where they have no incentive to cheat you, sadly as these are government sites they are not allowed the pay the going rate and rarely keep anyone good for long.
So taxpayers pay more and get less service in exchange but thats okay because remember the IT company funded the Goverment party in power. Bread, circuses anyone?
> Goverments buy a PC from say Crapita with windows installed and then Crapita image it with
> Select version of same OS so they can charge them twice for the OS.
Not quite as laid out: buying a PC without O/S is impossible - last downgrade I managed was to a NDOS version that saved me a total of less than £8 per PC (in bulk), but the re-image still has to happen because of the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement Licence terms, not the integrator making a buck.
> These sites rarely have roaming applications because their external server teams are
> clueless IMHO and cause more problems than they solve and so everything is imaged
> by hand complete with a generic application set and usually the wrong drivers.
A little harsh, but a single Gold Image is the support nirvana, and compromises WILL be accepted it it works. Roaming applications depend a LOT on the end to end architecture, and wioth my users on the end of VPN over ADSL, I'm not about to get "creative" without really slowing the poor old users (did I really just say that) down to an unacceptable crawl!
Dell?
They used to do N-series desktops that came without an OS installed.
I'm not sure if they still do, but if you're buying 50, they will offer it!
However, as a supplier will obviously only offer hardware support if you do that, they can easily scare management away.
it really is about time the issue of the stupiddddddddd number of forces in the UK is addressed. When budgets are tight right across government why do we have this total waste of 42 lots of, IT, HR, Uniforms, Cars, etc Down here in Cornwall we have just had an announcement that D&C police might lose 500 officers (of course this is that total waste of time and money Crime Officers attempt to stir things up) but reduce the number of forces and there is plenty of money to be saved! We have 3 forces just in the South West + Mod + transport police + Civil Nuclear Constabulary + probably some more as well!
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