back to article Microsoft compliance police to NHS: We want your money

Microsoft is playing hardball with the NHS, threatening trusts and authorities with drastically increased software payments over claimed licence violations. The tough talking comes more than a year after an organisational shift began across the NHS (April '13) saw some Primary Care Trusts and strategic health authorities …

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  1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    MS must be scared

    That the NHS won't renew their purchasing agreement. This is IMHO a great way to scare them into buying more licenses 'just in case'.

    time someone called their bluff.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Time to say you're looking at those RedHat/SUSE/Ubuntu install DVDs?

    Seeing how Microsoft treats its biggest paying customers, one wonders how they deal with their smaller ones.

    In the past ¡just saying that you're considering doing anything with Linux has had wonderful effects on these strong hand tactics. If that does not work you can always perform a Munich-style migration. Starting even to plan that surely will encourage much sweeter talks with Redmond.

    Granted, NHS is much bigger than Munich, but they are mostly on XP, aren't they? If so, they can start by leveraging the cost savings from hardware reuse towards the migration costs (training, app rewrites, etc)

    1. Richard Jones 1
      Mushroom

      Re: Time to say you're looking at those RedHat/SUSE/Ubuntu install DVDs?

      The way they treat smaller customers is to try to sell them Windows (H)8. The printer, scanner network upgrades alone will bring them to their knees - I know it was not compatible with anything and blue screened connecting with the print servers. Now I am a confirmed Win 7 shop.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Time to say you're looking at those RedHat/SUSE/Ubuntu install DVDs?

        "blue screened connecting with the print servers"

        That would be your printer vendor's crappy drivers then. Not a Microsoft issue.

        1. John Sanders
          Mushroom

          Re: Time to say you're looking at those RedHat/SUSE/Ubuntu install DVDs?

          ""That would be your printer vendor's crappy drivers then. Not a Microsoft issue.""

          Yes, the very same drives that underwent the Microsoft certification process.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Time to say you're looking at those RedHat/SUSE/Ubuntu install DVDs?

            "Yes, the very same drives that underwent the Microsoft certification process."

            If they are causing bluescreens then they are almost certainly uncertified. Get some WHQL certified drivers installed or buy a decent printer like a Xerox Phaser.

            "Allowing an external module to crash the kernel? That is very much a Microsoft issue."

            Just like a badly written Linux device driver can crash the system you mean? All Windows drivers are modular and effectively external to the kernel (although they might run in kernel mode). It's one of the things that differentiates Windows from legacy monolithic OSs

        2. The BigYin

          Re: Time to say you're looking at those RedHat/SUSE/Ubuntu install DVDs?

          "That would be your printer vendor's crappy drivers then."

          For not working? Yes. That is the vendor's issue.

          "Not a Microsoft issue."

          Allowing an external module to crash the kernel? That is very much a Microsoft issue.

    2. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: Time to say you're looking at those RedHat/SUSE/Ubuntu install DVDs?

      The NHS is the 4th largest employer in the world, and if you look at the ones that are bigger, People's Liberation Army, Indian Railways and Walmart, the NHS probably has a higher proportion of staff with desks and computers. Therefore they are likely to be Microsoft's biggest account.

      1. Random Handle

        Re: Time to say you're looking at those RedHat/SUSE/Ubuntu install DVDs?

        >The NHS is the 4th largest employer in the world,

        It employs 1.3 million currently and is not even in the top 10 if you count other public sectors - it's less than half the size of the US DoD for instance.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Time to say you're looking at those RedHat/SUSE/Ubuntu install DVDs?

      "Seeing how Microsoft treats its biggest paying customers, one wonders how they deal with their smaller ones."

      The same. The really small customer can deal effectively with MS by crumpling the audit demand letter into a tiny little ball and throwing it away. MS/BSA is too busy with big targets to follow up on the little guys.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How they treat smaller customers? Much the same then!

      I can tell you exactly how they treat their smaller customers who buy volume licenses.

      Last January, we had two customers, each had a volume license agreement. Both customers around the 40, 50 user mark. They both received a letter from Microsoft, on pretty much the same day, telling them that they have to complete a SAM assessment, or rather, they have to contact a SAM partner to do it for them. Failure to comply within three months and Microsoft were going to take "legal proceedings" were their exact words.

      The next day, we got a call from Microsoft saying they were looking for SAM partners who want lots of money as they have just sent letters out scaring small businesses and threatening them with legal action if they didn't do a SAM assessment. We did it for one of our customers, didn't charge them a thing (they are good customers, big contract), sent the report back.

      9 months after the initial threat, we got a call:

      MS: "you haven't done this SAM assessment".

      ME: "Yes we have. I sent it to *joe bloggs*"

      MS: "Oh, she left so I haven't got it"

      ME: "Well, neither have I. You threaten us with legal action and you can't trace your correspondance? Piss off. (when in fact I still had it, but why the bother?)"

      3 months later -

      MS: "We found it, but you haven't complied."

      ME: "Yes we have, look at the numbers."

      Much sending over OEM stickers, volume license and SPLA purchase orders later, we got there and finally convinced Microsoft they were "up to date" on their licensing. Needless to say, thats the last Volume License we ever sell.

      1. N2

        Re: How they treat smaller customers? Much the same then!

        Nasty bastards.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: How they treat smaller customers? Much the same then!

        That you have also to deal with their asinine rules of what products you can upgrade to or downgrade from. Mind you, paying for the Enterprise edition of a higher product version does not always automatically entitle you to install the Standard edition of the same product in a lower version. This is incredibly fun, and how these changes alter the license count is.... priceless.

        Everything of course is solved and forgotten suddenly if you're willing to sign in for a software assurance program. Way to go, Microsoft. This is part of their Oracle-ization, defined as the change of a company where its objective is to extract the maximum profit of each customer regardless of any future earnings, goodwill, or trust lost. Not to beat competition or introduce new products or technologies that expand their market. Nothing to do with that: just get the maximum profit now, worry about the consequences later.

        Next quarter is king above all else. And this slowly erodes the company's ability to do anything that preserves itself on the long term. Innovation? Not if it can potentially erode the current revenue customer base. Competition? Crush it not by creating products that are better, cheaper or both, but by legal/patent threats and "embrace, extend, extinguish"

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Government

    It seems to me that if the government could find an organisational structure and stick to it, there wouldn't be quite so much trouble.

    Constant reorganisation, never-ending rebranding and staff shifting, can't be good for anyone and looks like the government just wants to look like it's doing something to help while actually making things worse.

    Same applies to Education.

    Same applies to the previous government as well.

    1. JimmyPage Silver badge
      Flame

      Will never happen.

      The reason nothing stays the same in government is simple. It means it's impossible - not just difficult, or tricky, but actually *impossible* to identify where anything - or anyone - went wrong.

      Here's a simple, (definitely non trivial) example from recent history. Do you remember the winning bid for the 2012 Olympics HMG submitted ? Do you remember how suddenly it went 17.5% over budget because someone "forgot" to add VAT (no you couldn't make it up).

      Now, who was responsible ?

      See what I mean ?

      1. DavCrav

        Re: Will never happen.

        "Here's a simple, (definitely non trivial) example from recent history. Do you remember the winning bid for the 2012 Olympics HMG submitted ? Do you remember how suddenly it went 17.5% over budget because someone "forgot" to add VAT (no you couldn't make it up)."

        But VAT goes back to the government, so isn't really a cost. It's an accountancy flick of the wrist. It didn't cost the taxpayer a penny.

        1. asdf

          Re: Will never happen.

          >But VAT goes back to the government

          That works if its all one pool of money but here in the US, city, state and federal all have their own budgets (and all three pay some in case of Olympics but mostly the city). Of course we don't really have the VAT as its not regressive enough for us.

      2. Trigonoceps occipitalis

        Re: Will never happen.

        We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.

        Caius Petronius, Roman Consul, 66 A.D.

    2. haughtonomous

      Re: Government

      An organisation should constantly change and adapt with the times. That should never be hampered by software licensing. The NHS is right to evolve. They should tell MS to take a hike - for what the NHS does with software they have no need of MS licences.

    3. Nuke
      Holmes

      Re: Government

      Wrote "Constant reorganisation, never-ending rebranding and staff shifting, can't be good for anyone"

      It is good for an incoming chairman.

      I have worked for several large organisations and every time a new chairman came along he would demand re-organisation. Two reasons:-

      1) They want to pose as a "new broom, sweeping clean"

      2) (Perhaps more important) With the previous organisation, his aides and directors under him would always have the advantage, in the top-level power struggles, of knowing better than he did how the system worked. (Think of a "Yes Minister" scenario - "But sir, you can't do that because of Company Rule 17b)(iii)" etc). By a total re-organisation, the new chaiman levelled the field for himself - everyone ended up just as confused as he was.

    4. The Brave Sir Robin

      Re: Government

      In order to stop the constant and unnecessary government interference and inefficiencies you'd need to find a government not made of public schooled fuckwits.

  4. MJI Silver badge

    So MS are threatening the sacred cow of British life?

    This needs to be more widely pulbicised. I would rather have my taxes paying for care of patients rather than paying off a bully of a company.

    1. Lamont Cranston
      Joke

      Re: So MS are threatening the sacred cow of British life?

      You'll be thrilled to know that a large chunk of taxpayer funds has just been allocated to a new life support project - we're keeping XP going for a bit longer.

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge
        Pint

        Re: So MS are threatening the sacred cow of British life?

        @Lamont Cranston: Why the joke icon? I thought the NHS *was* one of the organisations paying extra to keep XP going a bit longer.

        1. Lamont Cranston

          @ Ken Hagan

          If I wasn't laughing, I'd be crying. All NHS IT projects should come with that icon.

    2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: So MS are threatening the sacred cow of British life?

      I would rather have my taxes paying for care of patients rather than paying off a bully of a company.

      Blowing the NHS away might actually result in reaching BOTH TARGETS AT THE SAME TIME!!

    3. veti Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      Re: So MS are threatening the sacred cow of British life?

      Have you any idea how many full-time managers the NHS employs?

      A better question would be, what the hell are they all doing for their money, if they can't even keep track of how many software licenses they have?

      It's not that hard, every company I've worked for manages it somehow.

      As to the "just use Linux" crowd - I don't think some people have even the remotest beginnings of an idea of how much bespoke, platform-specific software is in use in the NHS. (Actually, I don't think anyone in the world knows that, least of all those aforementioned NHS managers.) But I'm pretty sure, it's a lot.

      Seems to me the real story here is "Top NHS management tried to cut costs by skimping on license accounting, so that politicians can bleat about how they're keeping costs down in the NHS". I'd just love to know if there's a paper trail that implicates a senior civil servant, or even a politician, in authorising this fraud.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I work in the IT department of an mid-sized NHS organisation, and our discounted bill is in the region of £1.2m. We're apparently underlicensed in a number of area's, especially in CAL's, but the only way to verify this is by using an MS endorsed and supplied auditing tool, which seems a bit like gamekeeper and poacher being the same person to me.

    I've often suggested switching some of our non clinical desktop real estate to Linux, open office, etc, but the argument always comes down to service disruption (mostly from staff being unable or unwilling to adapt) and that's one thing that an NHS trust really can't afford.

    AC, for obvious reasons

    1. tfewster
      Linux

      ..service disruption..staff being unable or unwilling to adapt..

      With the greatest possible respect to the Sir Humphreys making those arguments, service disruption in non-clinical areas isn't the same as disruption in medical service delivery.

      I worked for an NHS trust in the early 90s, migrating medical secretaries and other non-clinical staff from typewriters to computers. Many of the secretaries were in their 50s, but they all adapted well (if not all willingly, though they all realised the benefits in the end).

      And retraining from XP/Office 2003 to Linux/OpenOffice would be about as disruptive as changing to Win 7/Office 2010

      I suspect your biggest challenge is getting browser-based access to work on something later than IE6 - That's going to have to happen anyway, so moving to another browser is a relatively small additional change.

      If only the money saved on licensing could be redirected to training (or better office chairs - THAT would be a good motivator!)

      1. Kubla Cant

        Re: ..service disruption..staff being unable or unwilling to adapt..

        retraining from XP/Office 2003 to Linux/OpenOffice would be about as disruptive as changing to Win 7/Office 2010

        Less disruptive, given that all developments in MS Office seem to aim to make the UI as unlike the previous version as possible. Libre/Open Office have a straightforward interface that's just like earlier versions of Office. No ribbons in sight.

      2. John Sanders
        Holmes

        Re: ..service disruption..staff being unable or unwilling to adapt..

        I know the best way to motivate employees to change.

        a) Warn them they will get fired if they do not adapt

        b) give them some bonus with some of the savings to those who adapt.

        Suddenly motivation goes of the charts.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "but the only way to verify this is by using an MS endorsed and supplied auditing tool, which seems a bit like gamekeeper and poacher being the same person to me."

      No it isn't - there are lot of third party license audit / inventory tools you could use if you doubt the Microsoft ones.

    3. Nuke
      Holmes

      @ NHS A/C

      Wrote "I've often suggested switching some of our non clinical desktop real estate to Linux, open office, etc, but the argument always comes down to service disruption (mostly from staff being unable or unwilling to adapt) "

      I saw, in the 1990's in my comapny, everyone - Chairman, typists, engineers, draughtsmen, workshop foremen and all - adapt to computers from pen-and-paper, drawing boards, Telex machines, carbon-copied forms and typewriters. It happened almost overnight.

      Now we are told that people cannot adapt from one word-processor to another. Incredible.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I work for an organisation that supports a number of NHS trusts. We've just had a little scurry around auditing their MS licensing status.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It really shouldn't be a great drama. We (NHS organisations - hence AC) have all known since 2010 that we'd have to buy desktop licences for additional devices beyond those that we were all allocated at the end of the EWA - and those allocations were based on the actual device numbers we were all asked to submit at the time.

    And even during the currency of the EWA Project and Visio and server licences were always out of scope, so all organisations should always have been buying those.

  8. CAPS LOCK

    What is wrong with getting software from someone else?

    It's not like there are no alternatives. As for the 'It doesn't work the same' argument, surely that has been taken care of by Windows 8 and Office 2012. In fact Linux Mint seems to work almost the same as Xp and Libre Office seems a lot more like Office used to be that the current version.

    I'm only guessing but I feel the answer is that the people responsible for purchasing have some sort of relationship with MS?

    1. eulampios

      Re: What is wrong with getting software from someone else?

      ...that the people responsible for purchasing have some sort of relationship with MS?

      And it seems that these people are pretty competent in representing Microsoft, or is it that they are pretty incompetent in representing both the NHS and British taxpayers?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What is wrong with getting software from someone else?

      "In fact Linux Mint seems to work almost the same as Xp and Libre Office seems a lot more like Office used to be that the current version."

      Libre Office is still crap in comparison, doesn't support the required Macros and Addins - and Linux doesn't run 90% of other required software.

      1. jonathanb Silver badge

        Re: What is wrong with getting software from someone else?

        How many people use Word Macros? It is mostly used for relatively straightforward letters and reports. Reports might be worked on by several people, and track changes is useful for that, but I've never seen macros used in the wild.

        Excel is different, people frequently misuse macros there, though I've yet to see a problem for which Excel macros were the correct answer.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What is wrong with getting software from someone else?

          "How many people use Word Macros"

          Lots - for everything from mail merges to automated document and report creation.

  9. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Facepalm

    It told the bodies to assess their software estate and cough for any "identified shortfall" by 30 June.

    1) Is there a magician in the house who can do this in time and also decide which of MS licensing horror ruleset to apply?

    2) What happens in case of a "reverse shortfall". Refunds? Don't mention it.

  10. William Boyle

    It's time!

    It looks like time for the NHS to start migrating their systems to open source software! If MS wants to play hardball (a US baseball term - hardball is what the big kids play, softball is for the girls - sorry, but I mean no disparagement to the more attractive half of the species, and I love playing both), then let them consider what it will cost them if there was zero income from the NHS at all!

    1. Adam 1

      Re: It's time!

      >hardball is what the big kids play, softball is for the girls - sorry, but I mean no disparagement to the more attractive half of the species, and I love playing both)

      So hardball and girls?

  11. M. B.

    This kind of nonesense...

    ...is why I selected RHEL for a DMZ project involving a few dozen servers at my old employer. Sitting outside the managed environment meant sitting outside the visibility of most of our tools. No BS from Red Hat (here's how you license it, yes that's production support, yes that includes all this extra software, sure we'll give you a discount on JBoss), and the support was at the least slightly better than MS, and quite often much better.

    The next year saw us replace aging Solaris boxes with RHEL on x86 for Oracle RAC, inexpensive, fully supported, and fast enough for our accounting folks to bring us cookies the first time they ran the monthly reporting.

    My director was especially tickled by the amount of money NOT given to Oracle and Microsoft and the users were much better off for it. The yearly cost savings in licensing alone helped them justify two additional FTEs plus training for all my admins.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This kind of nonesense...

      "The yearly cost savings in licensing alone"

      On Oracle maybe, but RHEL costs way more than running Windows Server just to license, let alone the TCO.

      1. eulampios
        FAIL

        Re: This kind of nonesense...

        but RHEL costs way more ... just to license

        Tell us about this license. Dear AC, are you confusing licensing and support, because, besides the support (for which you would pay MS separately from the license) there is only the trademark license? Didn't you know that RHEL source code is available and for absolutely free (as both in beer and freedom)? There is also a few free renowned derivatives, like CentOS or Scientific Linux.

        than running Windows Server

        Okay, RHEL includes literally gigabytes of software, a hundred maybe a thousand times more than your Windows Server. What it means that it is packaged into repositories it also provides all security and bug updates for you whenever those become available from the actual developers (mostly disjoint from RedHat) or are when RedHat own engineers find security issues within it (thanks to the fact that they are mostly free software).

        For a comparison, there are about 5 webservers, 2-3 office suites, a gazillion of text editors, multimedia players, CAS systems, system and general tools, almost complete distribution of Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby TeX/LaTeX and you-name-it....

        let alone the TCO

        Let alone all the marketing bullshit, or how were they called?... get-the-facts?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: This kind of nonesense...

          "are you confusing licensing and support"

          Nope - Red Hat has to be licenced to get support (and compiled patches).

          It's still significantly more expensive than licensing AND paying for Software Assurance (support) for Windows Server.

          "also provides all security and bug updates for you whenever those become available from the actual developers"

          So a random release schedule that you can't plan for - for hundreds more patches than you get with Windows - that often are not regression / integration tested with other updates - so should be extensively evaluated / tested - but that still manages significantly more days at risk (longer fix time) on average than with Windows Server.

          "Didn't you know that RHEL source code is available and for absolutely free (as both in beer and freedom)? There is also a few free renowned derivatives, like CentOS or Scientific Linux."

          Neither of those options offers suitable support for a production environment. Post to a forum and pray isn't exactly an enterprise class solution.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: This kind of nonesense...

            AC, with the above and your comment (assuming it was you) about RHEL being higher TCO than Windows, I can honestly say that it appears you have had very little real world experience with the 'nix side of things.

            I manage a pretty large infrastructure of both Windows and Red Hat. The latter comprises of approximately eight times the number of hosts as the Windows environment, and yet requires around 20% less time overall to manage and support than the Windows one.

            Yes, RHEL does involve installing more patches but in our real world experience they don't unexpectedly break things anywhere near as much as those from Microsoft. They are easier and faster to apply and in most cases no reboot is required; normally it's just a restart of the affected services so downtime is very minimal if even noticeable. On the other side of the coin I've had three patches upset an Exchange 2010 server alone over the last 18 months and while none of them resulted in long outages, it took a lot of staff time to track down the causes and remedy them.

            Then there's CentOS. If I don't want to pay for supporting a system that is less critical, we can choose to deploy CentOS instead and forgo the licensing cost entirely for that system. It's legal, it's the same code as RHEL, binary compatible and we can apply all the existing RHEL config and it just works.

            I suggest you put down those trade journals and Microsoft-funded 'case studies', and go try some real world experience for a change. You might be pleasantly surprised.

      2. Brad Ackerman
        Pirate

        Re: This kind of nonesense...

        Are you including the CALs? And the cost of your employees' time spent making sure that a sufficient number are purchased?

  12. KA1AXY
    Thumb Down

    Visio

    They shouldn't be allowed to charge for that piece of...software.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Visio

      Why not? Visio is an awesome toolset for systems architecture work. You can even generate code from UML in it!

  13. keithpeter Silver badge
    Windows

    Mr Maude

    Should Mr Maude not announce a major strategic scheme to migrate all public sector computer *clients* to open source over the next $longtimescale? Maximum publcity, spelled out in short words, aimed at MS shareholders.

    $longtimescale remains deliciously remote, but some minor activity on client OS starts (e.g. the reception PC) having made sure that the applications can be migrated easily. Say $somesmallpercent.

    Once MS see $somesmallpercent and a committment to $longtimescale, I'd expect to see a new agreement being negotiated fairly quickly.

  14. roger stillick
    Linux

    Brit NHS = View from the USA

    Obama Care sign-up wouldn't run on Oracle, Nationally or per State...

    Q1= how can your NHS possibly run on MS stuff n generate any Research Data ??

    Q2= how kluged up is your SW platforms ??

    Q3= is it a seamless national system or a whole bunch of separate local nodes ??

    Q4= who does the SYS Admin ??

    Q5=who sets SYS Engineering Specs ??

    Q6= does anyone audit SYS data quality ??

    Q7= does info in the Military's Lancet match findings in the NHS database ??

    IMHO= at least half of the World's Countries runs similar NHS programs... they seems to have found Medical SW systems that work w/o the MS folks in their pocketbook...

    the UK needs to similarly innovate...RS.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Brit NHS = View from the USA

      "at least half of the World's Countries runs similar NHS programs... they seems to have found Medical SW systems that work w/o the MS folks in their pocketbook..."

      But the vast majority of such systems are Microsoft based.

  15. Andy Taylor

    M$ just make it up as they go along

    I used to work for a national charity that provides help for people needing advice. Microsoft landed us with a £12k bill for a "connectivity licence" for which the organisation received no benefit or features at all. The reason was because the users of a particular web site were neither internal users or the general public and that wasn't covered in the usual IIS licence.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: M$ just make it up as they go along

      Microsoft landed us with a £12k bill for a "connectivity licence"

      It's hardly Microsoft's fault that someone was incompetent enough to not check the licensing requirments before commiting to it.

  16. steve hayes
    Linux

    Only one word for it

    Linux

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Only one word for it

      "Only one word for it

      Linux"

      It's internet facing and involving customer data. Hardly the place for something so often as hacked / exploited on websites as Linux.

      1. RISC OS

        Re: Only one word for it

        One word for it from marketing and those in charge of purchasing... "Apple".

        The problem with linux is, it only does what the developer needed and not what you need... then it's file a bug time and wait 2 years, then get the IT team at the NHS to test and rollout the fix - five years later it does what you want. The NHS can't work like that...

        also every doctor I have ever been to use an apple device already. Much easier to train people if you don't need to train them as they all ready have the software.

        1. eulampios
          FAIL

          a few "advantages" of Mac OSX

          The problem with linux is, it only does what the developer needed and not what you need

          Not true, you don't have to be a developer, lots of regular users are quite happy with GNU/Linux. As a matter of fact, it's more user friendly than Mac OSX. Say, most of GNU/Linux distros have repositories of tons of software available handled trough the single interface (multiple front-ends ad libitum). No side-loading is ever necessary. Mac OSX has mac-ports (bsd distribution ports) which is a pain in the arse to set up.

          then it's file a bug time and wait 2 years

          Any concrete examples? I do have a counter example though, remember flashback? Apple developers had been sitting and not fixing a severe Java vulnerability for the Mac OSX users for more than six months. It had been fixed already for GNU/Linux almost immediately. A lot of Mac OSX users had to suffer as the result and about 600K of users got infected as a consequence...

      2. eulampios

        Re: Only one word for it

        It's internet facing and involving customer data. Hardly the place for something so often as hacked / exploited on websites as Linux.

        This is bullshit, my friend. Are you suggesting that Linux web-servers get hacked because of some intrinsic vulnerabilities? If they do, it's mostly becuase of some bad practices and often due to the use of some buggy proprietary or in-house software. Windows ecosystem got it too (in a larger scale though) plus you got a constant threat of viruses and trojans. You need to run an antivirus software per Microsoft own recommendation.

  17. All names Taken
    Alien

    NHS will have to cough up provided there is an evidential basis.

    I suppose a knock on effect if it did not pay would be UK (soon to be England & Wales or maybe even just England?) credit rating.

    In finance Guvmints can't say won't pay without consequence?

  18. Triggerfish

    Pay it

    and at the same time close some of MS's tax loopholes.

  19. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. markw:

      Re: NHS deserves to be ripped apart

      You've forgotten to take your medication again haven't you...

  20. A J Stiles

    Remember Ernie Ball

    The NHS would do well to remember the tale of Ernie Ball and his "ten thousand abacuses" comment.

    My suggestion is to do the following:

    1. Have the NHS petition for the annulment of copyright in all Microsoft products they are currently using. If the USA can retroactively and in defiance of their own written constitution assert claims for copyright over works which have passed into the Public Domain, then Britain can retroactively place into the Public Domain copyrighted works which are the subject of ongoing lawsuits.

    2. Use the time thus bought to begin a complete migration to Open Source software.

    The NHS is a big enough organisation to have its own in-house IT department, which could then subcontract itself out to others during the slack periods which would inevitably follow such a move. This would create local jobs for local programmers, who would then contribute through local taxes directly into the local economy, Local employees tend to eat in local restaurants, drink in local pubs, buy goods in local stores and take their families to visit local tourist attractions -- and, by virtue of their gainfully-employed status, are not attracting the attention of local law enforcement.

    Of course, it would be essential to take a holistic approach to such a task. A full ground-up systems analysis needs to be made, and procurement policies need to be written to ensure that equipment purchased in future must be sufficiently well documented to enable interoperation with an Open Source infrastructure -- which means first and foremost no obscure, proprietary file formats; all data must be stored in a way that allows any sufficiently-competent programmer to extract and manipulate it. At the same time, a full workflow study woukd enable the identification of shortcomings in the existing proprietary products and suggest improvements to be made in their eventual replacements.

    I am not saying this would not be an enormous task; far from it. But in the long term, it's got to be better for everyone if we keep money circulating in the local economy, instead of sending it abroad to enrich foreign billionaires.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Microsoft is playing hardball with the NHS

    I've been totally Microsoft free for over two years and haven't noticed any depreciation in my productivity, would somebody please tell the NHS ..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Microsoft is playing hardball with the NHS

      "haven't noticed any depreciation in my productivity"

      Surfing porn never required Microsoft's assistance.

  22. saif

    Deja Vu

    Ok not long ago an evangelical guru was appointed to migrate the NHS to open source.

    Microsoft responded by making their licensing terms more generous.

    The NHS accepted hinting that this was the plan all along.

    NHS procurement is a corrupt, incompetent, bunch of bureaucrats who get things that they do not use themselves (software, drugs, implants) by putting out a tender, and waiting for the vendors to do their marketing. Those with the fanciest presentations and the biggest kick backs get the deal.

    Ref: NP4IT, Microsoft NHS deals, Darent Valley and Pembury Hospital PFIs etc.

  23. Robert E A Harvey

    Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring, ring ring

    After 240 abortive attempts to get through on the phone:

    MS: "I want to make an appointment to talk to someone about your software licencing"

    NHS: "I'm sorry, there aren't any appointments free until September, unless it's an emergency"

    MS: "it's very important to us."

    NHS: "I'm sorry, there's no-one free. Have you got access to the internet? you could try NHS direct"

  24. RISC OS

    Why, after snowden

    is the NHS or anything todo with the government still using microsoft?

  25. trafalgar

    Cost of MS Licensing for NHS/Public Sector

    VS

    Paying a team of dedicated developers to maintain your own Linux distro, drivers, and app migrations

    ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Paying people to train staff too...

      ... just having a different icon causes people to be unable to use apps that linux die hards claim are the same as propriatry ones.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Window$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

    Microsoft must now be costing each and every British tax payer more per capita than Council Tax.

    Yet again I find myself thinking that isn't it about time we put away the childish love/hate relationship with Apple and bring in a company who appreciates their users.

    New releases of the MacOS Free of Charge.

    20 licenses of a 1000 seat server software (20,000 users) just $19.99 total. Even the hardware is a better quality and standard than most of what the NHS is using and for sure Apple would offer some huge discounts to get a hardware deal such as this on the go.

    How many NHS specialists are already using iPads and iPhones? So sync and compatibility is easier. And of course then there's all the current expensive paranoia hardware to prevent viruses, spyware and malware.

    We hear of what Microsoft are charging but what about the anti virus subscription costs as well?

    Mark Rogers (MD) and Richard Puckey (FD) Apple UK need their grossly elevated positions looked at and analysed closely for not even attempting to get involved and bring Apple to this negotiating table.

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