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Comment by Merem | Hacker News Reader

Hm..

"At the time the report was released, the FSFE questioned why Accenture was commissioned to co-author a report assessing the use of Microsoft software, when the consultancy runs a joint venture with Microsoft called Avanade, which helps businesses implement Microsoft technologies. For its part, Accenture said it has an "independent view of the technology landscape".

"At the time Munich began the move to LiMux in 2004 it was one of the largest organizations to reject Windows, and Microsoft took the city's leaving so seriously that then CEO Steve Ballmer flew to Munich to meet the mayor. More recently, Microsoft last year moved its German company headquarters to Munich."

Everything else that is written there points towards it making no sense to switch back to Windows.

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Lot's of comments (1600) on Heise: https://www.heise.de/forum/heise-online/News-Kommentare/Von-...

Several comments mention "läuft wie geschmiert" which can be translated as mobbed-up / bribed.

While someone being "geschmiert" does mean they were bribed, "läuft wie geschmiert" translates to things running smoothly (like a well-oiled machine).

If you know German, it's the double meaning of the word, it's sarcasm. If you just look at the Duden dictionary, your findings are technically true.

Must be an international thing. In my country as well the act of "oiling gears" means giving bribes in order to obtain something and/or speed up the process by having your papers put on top of the pile.

I'm German (born, raised and lived in Munich) and I do not associate "Läuft wie geschmiert" with bribe. To me it has only one meaning, which is "running smoothly". In this context I'd guess the person said that Linux runs smoothly and from a technical point of view there is no reason to switch to Windows.

I wouldn't take a willingness of many people to accuse someone of a crime as evidence of it. It's also counterproductive, furthering the believe that "all politicians are corrupt" without evidence. If that's the reaction you get for any decision that is mildly controversial, you may actually start considering it.

There's also Occam's razor: less than 2% of people choose Linux on the desktop. Maybe it's just not that good for this purpose.

Linux advocacy has also changed. It's now so entrenched on the server that the quest to get it on desktops is less relevant. A lot of the OSS advocacy was also aimed at proprietary formats, and the web (mostly google docs) has increased competition for MS Office more than OpenOffice ever dreamt of.

I rather have proprietary formats on my hard disk, than open formats stored on someone's else computer.

why? I fail to see the logic, both are bad.

Yes both are bad, hence I rather choose the less bad one.

The one where I am productive and don't expose my data to third parties like Google.

Accenture is an unbiased source in this. They will give you the pro's and con's of a number of high-margin products from Microsoft. You'll know which of them is best for you. You will not find them slanted enough to tell you to port your infrastructure to Windows 2012 on dedicated servers over instances of your current 2003 Servers running on Windows 2012 with HyperV. They wouldn't push that over a cost-efficient implementation of your whole business in Azure. They'll let you run your conferences on Surface computers with a Powerpoint just as quickly as Powerpoint on desktops with Windows 10 Enterprise.

Accenture will get you the answers Microsoft needs regardless of your situation. You can count on it.

I always got the impression companies like Accenture were brought in to "evaluate the landscape" when the company bringing them in already had an opinion and could use an outsider confirming their opinion.

This is much of what management consulting is all about.

You would be correct. Its to CYA and help them look impartial to people who aren't aware of Accenture's bias.

Lol. Microsoft is utterly terrified of Linux making the jump from servers to the workplace.

It's arguably a much bigger threat than home users switching since businesses could switch many thousands of machines at once

For MS, home users have been a "total cost of ownership" element in their b2b sales pitch. With home users familiar with basic MS software usage from home, MS can argue that businesses do not have to sped as much on training new employees if said businesses use MS products.

But I think they make relatively little in eg Windows revenue compared to corporate sales, which shows even today.

I think this is especially true today, given the reduced desktop/laptop sales in the home space, and MS's free upgrades from v7+ to win10. I think that offset was in favor of getting a smaller support base as well as the advertising channel for office365 (which annoys me, not the product, the win10 ads), same for edge browser.

What annoys me about office 365 is that yes your new Windows laptop ship with office, no you can't start using it unless you hand your personal data over to Microsoft. And apparently you have to do this within the first few months of using the laptop or else.

> More recently, Microsoft last year moved its German company headquarters to Munich."

To be fair, the headquarters were in Unterschleißheim before, a suburb of Munich just 5kms from the new location.

Still the corporate tax (Unternehmensteuer) is now paid in Munich, which brings income to the municipality.

Sigh. I really miss Pud of Fucked Company. He had such a pithy way of describing companies. For example, he'd write about Accenture, and parenthetically say "pronounced ass-enter", and that summarized the situation perfectly.

It almost sounds like the sort of thing that happens often in the US. I thought the europeans were more resistant to lobbying and other related practices.

No we Europeans are just a bit more discreet when taking bribes but we're as corrupt as the rest of the world.

It's not a bribe when Microsoft is offering substantial cost reductions and tax revenue.

You would think Microsoft would fear the precedent.

Attention Governments: Go deploy Linux on your desktops and Microsoft will appear tendering huge sacks of cash. Tell your friends. Don't let them leave with a dime.

It's not like switching off of windows is without its' own costs... Just IT staff retraining alone is huge, let alone the increased staff demands during transition. I'm not saying it isn't worth it, but switching to free software isn't entirely free.

In Europe among politicians , as i guess everywhere, there's also that thing that i will undo everything you have done only because you have done it and i'm against it even if i don't understand it. And BTW probably get something in return from Microsoft.

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