Houston tells M$ to Shove It
The people who run this city recently heard a familiar pitch from Microsoft: Sign up for a multiyear, $12 million software licensing plan or face an audit exposing the city's use of software it hadn't paid for.
Microsoft warned that the city could be slapped with stiff fines for using any Microsoft software for which it could not produce receipts.
Scores of other businesses and public agencies, facing a similar dilemma, have agreed to the new licensing deals -- a linchpin of Microsoft's growth strategy.
Not Houston.
The nation's fourth-largest city rebuffed the offer and has embraced an obscure competitor called SimDesk. SimDesk delivers software over the Internet at a fraction of the cost of Microsoft's Office, a software suite used on 94% of America's office personal computers. Houston is giving SimDesk to tens of thousands of residents and businesses, free. And it has begun using SimDesk as an Office substitute on at least half the city's 13,000 PCs.
All I gotta say is: "YAY TEAM!!!"