Give a huge discount up front then hike it back up later, potentially even higher than the original once their dependent.
In related news, Sundar Pichai hospitalized after gargling Trump’s balls for too long.
I hope they don’t fall for it, but I’m sure they will.
I hope they don’t fall for it, but I’m sure they will.
The other alternative is Microsoft with Office365. If taxpayers are going to have to pay for one or the other, the cheaper one sounds like the better alternative.
There is also Libre Office. If they were serious about cutting government waste, they wouldn’t use Microsoft or Google.
I think you’re just thinking about word processing and spreadsheets neither of which covers the big things orgs want out of these suites: email, chat, video meetings, shared document storage.
They already have their own programs to do all that. They have had them since outlook was just a client and before Microsoft and Google offered email services.
The government should be using FOSS software simply to be a good stewart of our tax money.
They already have their own programs to do all that. They have had them since outlook was just a client and before Microsoft and Google offered email services.
I can’t quite tell what you’re recommending here. Are you saying the government should go back to using Sendmail SMTP servers, telnet or IRC chat, and NFS shares as replacements for modern enterprise communication suites?
Or maybe they just expect every state government (or worse, individual local municipalities) to roll their own personal cloud. Like have everybody set up a NextCloud server and just hope shit doesn’t fall over.
Yea, I would prefer that, a state founded agency which has the order to set up FOSS workspaces.
The tech is already here, all it needs is courage to ditch mega tech coorp.
Everything government must be transparent, in my opinion
The government has had their own servers and messaging applications since the internet began. There’s no good reason to ditch what they had in favkr of an inferior product like Microsoft or Google’s web mail.
What we used when I was there 20 years ago was vastly more secure because we rolled our own encryption (literally used mylar punch tape to load it into a device and diatribute it to the network.)
It was resistant to jamming and interception because it worked on a rolling set of keys that changed hundreds of times per second. (frequency hopping)
We owned the .gov and .mil domains and administered them ourselves.
Moving to an external corporation is less secure, and costs more money for the tax payers.
I’m pretty sure every federal executive agency has been on Active Directory and Exchange for like 20+ years now. The courts migrated off of IBM Domino/Notes about 6 or 7 years ago, onto MS Exchange/Outlook.
What we used when I was there 20 years ago was vastly more secure because we rolled our own encryption
Uh that’s now understood not to be best practice, because it tends to be quite insecure.
Either way, Microsoft’s ecosystem on enterprise is pretty much the default on all large organizations, and they have (for better or for worse) convinced almost everyone that the total cost of ownership is cheaper for MS-administered cloud stuff than for any kind of non-MS system for identity/user management, email, calendar, video chat, and instant messaging. Throwing in Word/Excel/PowerPoint is just icing on the cake.
i think they used email as a reference point in time. that they had the necessary tools before google did email
That’s my point. Basic SMTP email is a far cry from today’s modern email suites like Office365 or Gsuite. Suggesting a self hosted basic SMTP email as a replacement for a modern enterprise is not realistic.
The government will still have to pay to use Excel. Too much shit will break, you can’t just flip an .xlxs into another program.
Which sounds like an excellent reason to go through the pain once and replace Excel with something better standardized.
I work for an MSP. I can assure you, those who believe they need excel to do their job are willing to die on that hill, and take the whole department with them
Might be less pain in the long term to just let them die on that hill then and replace them when they are gone along with Excel.
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I do not really work with excel beyond the basics. Why can’t free solutions like libre office and open office replace excel?
Because MS made non standard functions to force lockin. You can’t even go from desktop app to web versions of excel without breaking things
The government should just use libre office
On one hand, the government should be looking at OSS. On the other hand, screw Microsoft’s shitty office software. If missing out on massive government contracts forces them to improve it, I’m all for it.
OSS usually has pretty bad support. Office sucks but it is much better than Workspace and many other alternatives.
Microsoft’s support also suuuuuuuuucks. We paid $500 once for assistance on an issue with a specific piece of hardware and the OS, and it took them MONTHS to even respond to us. I’d been demanding a refund for at least a full quarter before they even gave me the first response…
Yeah, I don’t know why people rave about Microsoft support. It sucks.
the us government, if it’s ever run by non-fascists, could easily afford to hire developers to not only properly support it but actively maintain and improve it.
especially with how many software engineers are being constantly laid off from big tech monsters.
The agreement establishes pricing based on the volume of the entire government rather than the lower discounts previously available through separate agreements on an agency-by-agency or transactional basis. … Historically, agencies may have been able to secure discounts through individual negotiations. Rather than relying on fragmented, agency-by-agency negotiations, the agreement ensures uniform pricing and standardized terms across the federal enterprise.
These offerings include integrated, advanced AI-powered capabilities such as Gemini, NotebookLM, and Advanced Gemini 2.0
