SearchOpenSource: Microsoft Windows Ousted at California School District

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Carver said it cost the district about $2,500 per school to migrate to Linux, compared with the estimated $100,000 it would have cost to upgrade their Windows infrastructure. In addition, buying more Microsoft Office licenses would have cost the district $100 per license, she said, whereas OpenOffice was free. (... they have 7 schools, so $17,500 vs $100,000 )


You pushed too hard , Mr. Gates.

Windows is too finicky in the licensing department. The price too high. Upgrading from Win98 to WinXP , for example, absorbes the Win98 license, you're not allowed to use that copy on another older machine.

You pushed and pushed, cut off any attempt to save money by the user, demanded more and more, actually removed features from windows (remember how dos used to have a basic interperter , the old qbasic ? now it's gone ? ) You made alliances with hard ware venders so that when people upgrade windows (not buy a new copy , thats always priced out of everyone's sight ..but absorb the current liscense so it can't be reused on another machine) they have to inevitably buy more hardware as well.

Now someone else has come along and noticed "Hey , we can put linux on some old clunkers, network them together , it performs just as well as windows and only costs 20% what windows would cost..."

You pushed too far... and for one california school district, the wave collapsed. They moved away from Windows and started on Linux.

Is this the beginning ?

Dell is now stating they will offer the option to pre-install Linux on their new low end computers in the near future. When you think about it , they don't have a choice, do they ? The hardware requirements for Vista are insane (3ghz clock speed, 3gig ram) , and of course Microsoft isn't going to sell Windows XP anymore, they're going to forbid the sale of it to get everyone on Vista. And if you're selling low end computers... Vista isn't an option. Won't run on the hardware.

This is only the beginning. Microsoft brought this on themselves.