Israel Suspends MS Office Purchases For Now 488
case_igl writes "The Seattle Times is reporting 'that in an apparent showdown over price, Israel's government has suspended purchases of Microsoft Office software and is encouraging the development of an open-source alternative.' The Finance Ministry has cooperated with Sun Microsystems and IBM in designing the Hebrew-language version of OpenOffice software, a freely distributed open-source alternative to Microsoft Office. The spokeswoman said the government was unhappy with Microsoft's refusal to sell individual programs from its standard Office package, which includes e-mail, spreadsheet and word-processing applications. Microsoft representatives in Israel did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment." The Associated Press article is carried on many other sites as well.
not? (Score:5, Funny)
Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
Peace , definitely Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
I would assume that the main benefits would be of most use to (in order):
Other Semitic languages such as Arabic, Syriac, and Ethiopian
Other right-left languages, such as Farsi.
Noticing a pattern here... Ironically enough, these improvements are likely to help develop the software for those that Israel considers to be their enemies (the Arab world and Persia, being Iran and parts of Iraq, Turkey, and Afghanistan).
This is not a bad thing. In the end, Israeli engineers may work side-by-side Iranian engineers on open source projects, and these engineers may develop personal respect for eachother.
The Israeli political system is paralized when it comes to peace, IMO, due to the low margin (2%) that parties need in order to qualify for the Knesset. This is why the current gov't is so dependent on the radical right-wing parties such as the National Religious Party (which many Israelis regard as fascist). Yet they are not stupid, and this unilaterial suggestion on their part has been a long time coming (if you read the Israeli press, you should have seen it at least a year ago, if not more).
The ONLY hope of peace is for enough people on all sides of the conflict to get to know eachother and develop personal respect. They don't have to respect eachothers' governments. Hell, as an American, I don't have much respect for MY government! But in the end, personal respect is the way towards peace. Collaboration is one way to do this. FOSS is one venue for collaboration.
Re:Peace , definitely Good! (Score:3, Interesting)
In the height of the cold war, lets say you met and befriended a Russian. Lets say a thousand people did, lets say a million.... what what % of the population do these personal relationships make governments change policy? My guess is, it doesn't happen. When ideologies not only vary, but conflict to the degree Israel and it's neighbors do, personal relationships will have very little effect unless we're talking about the nation's leaders becoming buddies, which
Re:Peace , definitely Good! (Score:2, Insightful)
OSS probably won't bring peace on earth by christmas of next year. It could very well bring some people together from different and conflicing cultures that would have not have otherwise. It is a step forward, and good enough for me. It will take many steps in the right direction, and this may be one of them.
Re:Peace , definitely Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
Extreme cold war.
You don't know any Russians.
You don't know anyone who knows any Russians.
You don't know anyone who knows anyone who knows any Russians.
You've barely heard of vodka.
Tchaiskovsky is ok because he comes from Czarist Russia.
A little interaction between a few people makes for a lot of change in the degree of seperation. American Rock Music in Moscow and Russian ballet in the USA or Western Europe do a lot to bridge the gaps. It doesn't solve the problems, but it does make them a lot less unsolvable.
Re:Peace , definitely Good! (Score:3, Insightful)
Although I appreciate your point of view, I don't think it applies to the parties in Israel. Primarily because the dispute in the Middle East evolves around land and religion, two things people (for
Re:Peace , definitely Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually you make a very valid point. One of the best (and most underrated) benefit of Free software is the collaborative nature and the community built around it. Look at what happened with KDE recently . Some Iranians made use of what is basically a European/German project. I dont know of many things in which Germans and Iranians cooprate in a grass root level. Certainly open source is not a panacea for peace or anything like that, but the cooperation and association in the field of open source development without borders surely will help people bring closer.
Re:I don't have much respect for MY government! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't have much respect for MY government! (Score:2)
And the Bam earthquake puts it all in perspective (Score:2, Interesting)
Iran refuses Israeli humanitarian aid for earthquake victims.
Islamofascist mad mullahs would rather their people die than get help from Jews.
And you claim it's the Israeli political system that's paralyzed by peace because of the low margin for Knesset representation.
Re:And the Bam earthquake puts it all in perspecti (Score:2)
You're ignoring the giant number of threats that Israeli officials have made towards Israel, the fact that Sharon has made veiled threats to nuke Iran, and publically said that he will push for the US to attack Iran after Iraq [newsmax.com]. He made those comments in November 2002, when the US was just starting to press Iraq in the UN.
Iranians are both afraid of and angry at Israel. Israel accuses them of having nukes
Re:And the Bam earthquake puts it all in perspecti (Score:4, Informative)
computer geeks aren't exactly violent (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish I could go along with that, but it seems like a little bit of wishful thinking. Geekdom is the ultimate meritocracy -- politics is not. In computer science, you can tell a good solution from a bad solution -- it's all ri
Re:Peace , definitely Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Peace , definitely Good! (Score:2)
Unfortunately FOSS developers are not the ones who's attitudes towards others need changing. It is the politicians who need educating.
The biggest problem now is that the Israeli politicians have a kneejerk reaction every time there is a terrorist attack. The only way they are going to make progress is to ignore the terrorists for a while and press ahead with plans to create an e
Re:Peace , definitely Good! (Score:3, Insightful)
I suspect that the engineers already respect each other. It's the politcians and other wackos that want to maintain the perpetual(?) war.
Re:"Peace" process, definitely Good ? (Score:5, Insightful)
(2) Why were the Hebron settlers murdered, and were their murderers brought to justice by any common, civilised sense of the term? What often happens is that in the understandable thirst for retribution, the actual reasons for the violence are trivialised, and the social order is suspended or abandoned- which only helps bring about more violence.
Re:"Peace" process, definitely Good ? (Score:3, Insightful)
The failure of the peace process in Palestine goes further than that. I don't believe there will ever be peace until the Palestinian people achieve some level of economic prosperity. When a people have something tangible to lose, they naturally shy away from violence. A prosperous Palest
Re:"Peace" process, definitely Good ? (Score:5, Interesting)
1) There can only be peace between equals. Israel is much stronger then palestine. Between unequals there can only be surrender. The palestenians are unwilling to surrender.
2) God is telling the israelis that a certain plot of land belongs to them. Once God tells you this all else is moot. There can be no peace as long as god is telling you to build houses on somebody elses property.
3) Neither party wants peace. That ugly fact really is the most important one.
What strikes me most is how this whole issue is so tainted with religion. When one country invades another one eventually they make the subjugated people citizens. This is what china did in tibet, what the Americans did to the indians, what the russians did all over eastern europe.
it's been decades since Israel took over the "disputed terrotories" and yet it has made no move to make any of those peole citizens? Why not? Because Isreal is a jewsish state and introducing millions of muslims into it's population as first class citizens would break a covenant with God. It's not a racial thing, it's OK to have some muslim citizens just not a majority or even a politically significant minority.
IMO Israel should annex the lands it won fair and sqare in a war. It should then do what every other nation in history has done when they won terrotory in war and that is to make them full fledges citizens. I bet that a vast majority of palestenians would love to be first class citizens of a modern democracy.
Re:"Peace" process, definitely Good ? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Oslo agreements and the resulting violence were nothing more than a result of the Israelly left's stupidity and blind-optimism whenever the word peace is involved, while confronted with a clever, hateful and murderous opponent (the PLO, later PA).
Yes, the Palestinians didn't manage to stop all the suicide bombers. But don't pretend that Isreal didn't use every shred of opportunity it got to strike back at the Palestinians as well, closing borders, isolating settlements, replenishing the jewish settlement, creating new ones.
There was no real desire for peace from the Israeli either, just peaceful assimilation. To reduce the Palestinians to a bunch of small reservations with no real power, much like what happened to the native indians in the US.
That failed, and failed miserably. Now they want to wall them in and isolate them by force. While it may keep them apart, it'll also stigmatize the entire situation more. What's next, all Palestinians allowed to move among the Israeli to wear a mark? Like the Jews under Hitler? Don't say it can't happen...
Kjella
Re:"Peace" process, definitely Good ? (Score:2)
What discouraged Israelis about the peace process was when Barak made a legitimate attempt at concluding the final status agreement and Arafat responded by refusing to negotiate and calling forth a wave of suicide bombings (the second intifada) that has continued to this day. This led most Israelis to believe, rightly IMO, that it is not possible to negotiate a final status agreement with a government headed by Arafat.
Your points about c
Re:Good! (Score:2, Interesting)
For example, when you try to add something in english in the middle of your hebrew line;
or when adding a phone number with a dash (+972-3-1234567) in the middle.
And they want money for that, sheesh...
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
Your typical Israeli office has native speakers of at least 5-6 languages.
The ability to nativize a desktop/office suite on the fly is tremendously important here.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
You gotta.. (Score:2, Funny)
You gotta watch them jews - they'll beat you down to the lowest price every time!
</sarcasm>
Disclaimer: I am jewish.
Good example! (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it'll help (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I think it'll help (Score:5, Funny)
Spreading Word is the last thing it'll do...
Re:Good example! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd like to see more countries do this. Hopefully it'll help convince businesses and people that Microsoft isn't the only choice.
What M$ will end up doing is waffling on the price down the road somewhere and try to schmooze Israel into coming back to them. It then becomes a matter of whether or not Israel is disenchanted enough with M$ to tell them to go away or if they'll recant and take the new deal.
In an effort to keep India from going open source at one point, M$ decided that offering software at a steep break would work to keep India in the shackles. IIRC, India went open source anyway after much debate.
Will the scenario play out the same way? Dunno. Either way, it'll be interesting to see what happens next. I am willing to bet that M$ will cave on the price to avoid losing business, with not too much concern over the revenue. It could be too little, too late, but they have little to lose by trying that. And since they have done that before, I expect history to repeat itself.
In the end, I hope Israel sticks to their plan and turns from M$ Office. And perhaps this is the new trend?
Re:Good example! (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if that happens also, microsoft will be the loser in the long term. The significance of these issues are actually the price pressure and discount pressure it exerts on Microsoft. When Microsoft "schmooze Israel in to coming back" with steep discounts and other incentives, others are bound to demand the same from Microsoft. And this is what going to create problems for
Re:Good example! (Score:4, Insightful)
What M$ will end up doing is waffling on the price down the road somewhere and try to schmooze Israel into coming back to them. It then becomes a matter of whether or not Israel is disenchanted enough with M$ to tell them to go away or if they'll recant and take the new deal.
Yep, but as MS learned with Munich and, as you pointed out, India, unless MS plays their cards just right, they could lose anyway. Too many people are too pissed off at the way they've been jerked around in the past, so many are willing to suffer a little pain and even higher costs to break free.
Microsoft's high-handed tactics of the last decade are coming back to haunt it. Not in a really significant way, just yet. A few thousand copies of Office here and a few thousand copies of Windows there aren't going to cause immediate suffering for a company of Microsoft's size and health, but as more organizations make the switch it will become easier and easier for others to make the switch.
The goal of F/OSS developers isn't to combat Microsoft, but it's becoming increasingly clear that what will motivate the entry of F/OSS into the mainstream is widespread dissatisfaction with Microsoft's tactics, rather than anything related to the relative quality of the software, or even price.
Re:Good example! (Score:2)
Re:Good example! (Score:5, Interesting)
$300 for XP Pro and $500+ for Office is shear lunacy. Before you spend ANY money on hardware, you already have spent more than the hardware is worth just in a simple OS and office product. Not worth it. Not even close. When I asked for a refund for XP Pro on my laptop I was told I would receive a check for $10. Is that what I paid when purchasing the laptop? Of course when I asked for 10 copies of XP Pro at the same price they were a little miffed at me. Bummer dude.
If I'm keeping score properly, there are about 30 countries in which the Government has "allowed" opensource alternatives. Most have required justification for non-opensource software and why opensource can't be used for the work. Microsoft isn't totally out of the picture. They have a seriously reduced role which I'm encouraging everywhere I can.
Re:Good example! (Score:2)
Re:Good example! (Score:3, Interesting)
As have I. I feel like the website for Open Office should have a world map that indicates which countries have already ousted M$ and have switched to Open alternatives. If such a map already exists, someone please provide a link!
Hrmm (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hrmm (Score:2, Insightful)
now...CODING from right to left would make for some fun revamping of parsers and parser generators, but nothing that would be all THAT complicated.
Re:Hrmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Didn't Microsoft really embarrassed themselves awhile back when they demonstrated Windows/Office using traditional Chinese characters in China (which uses simplified characters)? I think that demonstrates that Microsoft needs to be much more d
Interesting, but not hard (Score:5, Insightful)
What's interesting is if this is just a bargaining chit being used by israel to make MSFT drop thier price, Just like Thailand did! [com.com]
Use the promotional code "LINUX" and get thousands off your Microsoft installation costs!
Re:Interesting, but not hard (Score:3, Insightful)
MS is also tailoring a version of Windows for Thailand alone and making noises about being willing to this for other Asian markets as well, which are huge.
Isreal is a rich developed country where cost and licensing issues are the same as for any other developed nation. To be considered but not necessarily overiding issues.
However, the market is small and MS is r
Re:Hrmm (Score:2)
Re:Hrmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe just maybe Microsoft are going to find it increasingly hard to sell to countries whose language doesnt not follow similar rules to english (american) grammar. It could become a strong point above many others for open source products
Re:Hrmm (Score:2)
I don't remember how many times I've had to reset MS defaults from American (spelling, MDY date format, Letter-size paper, inches) to what we actually use here (UK spelling, DMY, A4, metric). It wouldn't be so bad if it actually made users aware that they were making this choice (I know that there is a selection somewhere, but it is usually ignored in the "click okay" frenzy of installing). And every time you reinst
Re:Hrmm (Score:2)
The computer world really is US-centric for the most part, at least in the Windows world.
Re:Hrmm (Score:2)
The other thing that occurs to me -- has there ever been a CLI that ran right to left? Now that would be an interesting project.
_sl # tsohlacol@toor
Re:Hrmm (Display! Not code...) (Score:2, Interesting)
If you have:
AABBBCCCDDD in your memory, since that's the order in which the characters have been typed, the only thing you have to do is make your display routines in such a way that you write them 'on screen' from right to left.
For all the code involved in line checking, block operations, search and replace, etc, etc, it really doesn't matter how i
Re:Hrmm (Score:2)
In that case, tokrev()! ^_^
Re:Hrmm (Score:2)
you need to reverse word letter order,
but numbers are written left to right, while punctuation mostly stays in place
The article was very skimpy on details (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The article was very skimpy on details (Score:3, Funny)
Yes.
Powerpoint (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Powerpoint (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Powerpoint (Score:2)
Re:Powerpoint (Score:2)
Re:Powerpoint (Score:4, Informative)
Use the free powerpoint viewer [microsoft.com] for employees that aren't writing the presentations. Buying office is a waste, especially if you're only using it to view ppt files.
Better, stop using powerpoint (or open office) and start presenting in HTML instead...no worries about compatibility issues, hyperlink as much as you want, easy bulleted and numbered lists, etc.
FIVRe:Powerpoint (Score:2, Insightful)
Presentation software is the worst category of software out there, IMHO. Most of the time, it destroys public speaking skills and tortures those who would like to learn something. I've seen effective uses of Powerpoint, but 95% of the time it seems that the "speaker" simply reads thier slides to the audience. This includes teachers and professors as well. They may as well just print out their "slides", pass them out, and send everyone on their way to do more with their time (like sleep).
Re:Powerpoint (Score:2)
That's a trend that started with the overhead projector, if not the blackboard. At least with a blackboard, people tend to restrict themselves to just writing out equations, drawing diagrams, and the like, as its so much harder to have the entire speech/lecture/whatever written out on it ahead of time.
away with MS (Score:3, Informative)
Re:away with MS (Score:2)
IDC, Gartner. (Score:2)
rrrriiiiiiggggghhhhhhhttttt.
Time will tell... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Time will tell... (Score:2)
But either way, real or ploy, it's an awesome thing, for two reasons.
1) Bad for Microsoft!
2) Funny as hell that it's, um, the Jew-country that is haggling over price . . .
Re:Time will tell... (Score:2)
Wondering What The Outcome Will Be (Score:3, Insightful)
what they REALLY said (Score:5, Funny)
Off the record, she refered to Bill Gates as a shlemil, and said they weren't going to take any more of his schmutz. They are tired of schlepping his insecure software around, paying far too much of their hard-earned mezuma for his khazeray.
Re:what they REALLY said (Score:2)
David vs Goliath? (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems to me that one of the reasons MS has always been able to create inconvienient packages from groups of software, and then sell at very high prices, is that they OWN most of the market. In other words, they're so big that you and I can't possibly expect to demand a concession.
Of course, now that countries are starting to realize that they're big enough to push back, we have more of a Goliath vs Goliath thing going on, and maybe MS will start to be more flexible in the way it offers its software. Maybe they'll start to consider adding a language pack when they stand to lose sales to an entire nation.
It'd be nice to be able, for instance, to buy Word and Excel without PowerPoint, Access, or FrontPage. (It'd be even nicer if Frontpage and everyone who contributed to it's creation were cast into Hell, but that's another story!)
Don't read too much into this (Score:5, Informative)
as for the claims that MS office doesn't support hebrew, it depends which version. Every copy you can find in Israel will be "Hebrew Enabled" which provides FULL Hebrew support, including great help files and even the interface.
Re:Don't read too much into this (Score:2)
The latter will be less efficient of course.
MS Is Dying (Score:4, Insightful)
Is the money that I make forcing people to buy things that they don't need (for example, an entire office license if all they need is Outlook) worth the money that I lose when people start flocking to free alternatives when they don't like I'm offering?
Microsoft (or any company for that matter) stands on very shaky ground when the market starts going in a different direction and they refuse to be flexible. This is just like the RIAA and file sharing. If the RIAA in the mid 90's when CD burners were about to hit the market had dropped the price of CD's, and offered a legitimate electronic distribution method, things like Napster would not have been such a big hit. They created unrest in the market by not being flexible and giving people what they want to buy, for the price they want. The same thing is now happening to MS. What does MS office have that OpenOffice doesn't? Nothing that mattered to Israel. So when they were forced to pay for something they didn't want or need, they looked for an alternative and found it.
Unless MS shapes up this will continue to happen and happen more rapidly. Mac OS, Linux, and all other *NIX will only gain market share as they become the viable alternative.
Just compare some of the licensing of Mac OS to MS. The new, fully loaded version of OSX? ~$130. The new fully loaded version of Windows XP? ~$200. The new fully loaded version of OSX Server? ~$1000 for unlimited users. The new fully loaded Windows server 2003? ~$4000 with 25 users. And that is not to mention Linux which is fully loaded for free!
They can't sustain this for long before something breaks.
Unless your name is Bruce Almighty ... (Score:2)
Re:MS Is Dying (Score:2)
Those ones are hoplessly bureocratic and some are just costing on last century's products. I'd rather have sucessfull small business owners giving Bill advice (;-))
--dave
Re:MS Is Dying (Score:2)
Right you are. Microsoft has never needed feedback from mere [l]users, and doesn't need it now. Only important people (and "important" is defined as having no need to ever touch a keyboard because your people take care of that) should ever be listened to when designing new products to be used by unimportant people.
The rest of us should just b
Re:MS Is Dying (Score:2)
Re:MS Is Dying (Score:2)
I may be wrong, I took a 10+ year hiatus from tech (missed out on the '90s almost
Good Enough for Homeland Security (Score:2)
Lets ask the guys that got an F (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft employees and shareholders react (Score:5, Funny)
Mo' choice == mo' betta (Score:4, Interesting)
I installed OO.o for OS X the other day, and poked around a bit. Gotta admit, it isn't anywhere near as easy to use outa the box as either Office or AppleWorks, at least for me (got both installed). That said, I think it has a lot of potential, and I'm anxious to see what the Aqua-native version will bring. And the folks over at OO.o admit that it's not for the faint-of-heart, and recommend it only for geek-y types at this time.
I'd like to see Apple release an update to AppleWorks, for both Mac and Windows. I also think Apple should support Linux as well, and expect that they eventually will. The more competion that MS has, the better off we all are. It's not like MS can't make good software - Office v.X and Flight Simulator come to mind as examples of good products.
Anyways, hopefully MS will continue with their recent trend of seeking outside input (as with the questionaire sent to Linux users. [slashdot.org]
(tig)
Open Office is good enough (Score:4, Informative)
If the documents from Microsoft (although I don't really know if they were from Microsoft because my direct client was not Microsoft) can be used on Open Office then why not in the Israel government, provided that the language support is there. My experience is that government clerks are not the brightest users anyway and they tend to use a limited range of features they have been tought. With some planning Open Office can be more than adequate for all real tasks in the government.
--
Market size for Hebrew office? (Score:4, Insightful)
It just sounds like a pricing game to me -- MS wanting (needing?) to sell the whole package in Hebrew to make any money keeping up their translation and the Israeli government objecting to the provisions of the seller.
It wouldn't surprise me if MS just decided to drop Hebrew altogether; it's a limited growth market, and the number of people who speak English in addition to Hebrew has to be huge, and with the demands of document portability, many would likely switch to the English version anyway vs. some other version which supports Hebrew.
I know, I know, it's another terrible example of American corporations exterminating a local culture in the name of profits, but that's just a political interpretation of economic reality.
Re:Market size for Hebrew office? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Market size for Hebrew office? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Market size for Hebrew office? (Score:3, Interesting)
Furthermore, Israel exports a lot of "bleeding edge" technology to the rest of the world. If Israelis don't use Microsoft, it will have noticable effects, especially with early adopters which are often also trend setters.
Probably just a bargaining technique (Score:2)
Not wishful thinking data: objective stuff.
Confused (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps the middle-eastern market is diffrent then the american one... but near as I'm aware you can still by Outlook, Word, and Excel seperatly. However, it makes little sence to as if you need two MS applications, you might as well buy Office. At least the american price is something like $200 for excel, $200 for word, and like $100 for outlook. The office professional edition is like $500 from buy.com, not sure about the SB edition, the upgrade is about $300 from buy.com.
Now... whether or not you can buy one copy of Office and install word on one machine, excel on another, and outlook on another is a little bit unclear to me. Back in 2000 I did actually ask microsoft about this, they... being tech support said "I don't know, sounds reasonable to me, but I don't know".
Bundling (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that Microsoft is trying to milk everyone for more than they're worth. Israel isn't doing anything wrong beyond saying "why are we choosing Microsoft if their support is sub-par. Why shouldn't we find a better prices solution that is completely compatible". Microsoft has to be competative (with free) or convince more lemmings to follow them off the cliff.
-M
Re:My head is about to explode! (Score:2)
Get over it!
Israel and Iran (Score:3, Funny)
But at least they both agree that Free/Open Source Software is good! Maybe this is an opertunity for peace down the road!
Laughing? Don't. Think of it this way-- what better way to gain additional respect for someone you think probably just wants to annihiliate or repress your people than workign with them on development of open source software?
Re:Israel suspends MS Office purchases (Score:2)
Very off-topic, but... (Score:2)
Re:Very off-topic, but... (Score:2)
As long as Israel thinks it's no big deal to leave millions of Palestinians in refugee camps nobody should be surprised that they have no real problem with the concept of walking into a populated area and blowing themselves up.
Funny how the world works ain't it. Who would have figured that Israel would become the new Nazis?
Re:Expound. (Score:2)
Re:Just waiting now (Score:2)
Antisemitism is never welcomed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Antisemitism is never welcomed (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I also thought it was because of MS's crappy half-hearted support of Hebrew.
Re:Better Use of Funds (Score:2)
Re:Check your facts (Score:2)
Michael Oren is pro-Israel. Look for something else.
Re:Steal It (Score:2)