Comment Not really surprising... (Score 1) 131
I have myself been in a similar scenario, where a public international administration in Belgium decided, 20 years ago, to test a Linux environment as well as FOSS applications with also about 40 volunteers. This was following strong recommendations from various internal software engineers. I was of course one of the volunteers to assess the Linux environment. Unfortunately, as any "respectful" public administration, Microsoft was and still is the master:-(
After two years the pilot from my perspective and from several colleagues was quite successful. I was able to work only with Linux, forgetting completely Microsoft. At that time, there was an independent objective to "move to paperless administration". I was quite surprised that using Linux allowed me to achieve this goal while this was quite impossible with Microsoft.
Unfortunately, some high level director concluded, in a very "diplomatic" way, that this Linot pilot was not a success and the idea went to the trash. My personal understanding was that the management wanted only to show they tried something, but without the intention to move further and without the will to improve the situation.
I think it is not uncommon that some people at the high level of management or people like politicians take decisions based not only on factual performance but also on "informal and not transparent" communication with large companies, like Microsoft.
After all, there must be a reason why these large corporations invest so much money in the lobbying activity.
After two years the pilot from my perspective and from several colleagues was quite successful. I was able to work only with Linux, forgetting completely Microsoft. At that time, there was an independent objective to "move to paperless administration". I was quite surprised that using Linux allowed me to achieve this goal while this was quite impossible with Microsoft.
Unfortunately, some high level director concluded, in a very "diplomatic" way, that this Linot pilot was not a success and the idea went to the trash. My personal understanding was that the management wanted only to show they tried something, but without the intention to move further and without the will to improve the situation.
I think it is not uncommon that some people at the high level of management or people like politicians take decisions based not only on factual performance but also on "informal and not transparent" communication with large companies, like Microsoft.
After all, there must be a reason why these large corporations invest so much money in the lobbying activity.
