More for Microsoft, Less for Social Housing Tenants

 

I visited one of our customers - Riverside Group - yesterday for a technical meeting, to learn that they are having to pay four times as much for their Microsoft Licences, with immediate effect, having had their classification changed by Microsoft.
Naturally, I could not believe that Microsoft would do such a thing, so I researched it for myself and came across this article very quickly.

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240158770/Microsoft-hikes-software-costs-by-four-times-for-some-charities

The first sentence speaks for itself
"Specialist charities such as housing associations and social enterprises face paying nearly four times as much for Microsoft software due to licensing changes to be introduced by the software giant in September"

Further down the same article says

"Microsoft's private sector customers also face price hikes of up to 25% from 1 July, as the software giant tries to harmonise licensing terms across Europe. Businesses using the affected volume licensing agreements are some of the biggest in the world and Microsoft risks causing anger among some of its best customers as a result."

It is so easy to boost profits, in the middle of a recession, by massively increasing your prices if your customers are instituions and locked into your products.   Doubtless this "decision" will lead to massive performance bonuses for super-rich executives somewhere along the line.  This is not however, a "victimless" smash and grab, because every penny taken from Housing Associations is paid for by a cut in services or an increase in rent to some of the poorest people in our society.  I will say no more.

Microsoft comes to town

The London Olympics provide a rare opportunity to see for ourselves the reality of the 60% profit margin on Microsoft Office. The "Octopus" - a "yacht" owned by Microsoft co founder Paul Allen steamed into the London Docks this week. It is worth seeing - get off the DLR at South Quay - to see what looks like a cross channel ferry with a launch  in attendance which is bigger than most yachts. Octopus is far larger than the Royal Yacht of the Queen of Denmark, anchored close by. 

Also interesting, this week to read of the fury of Computer game platform maker Valve - a company valued at $3bn - announce that it is to port its Steam gaming and distribution platform to Linux in a move intended to protect the company from the impending "catastrophe" of Windows 8. Why? because the locked down version of Windows RT, with its software downloads via the Zume platform which will let Microsoft take a 30% cut of any software downloaded to the new Windows tablets. This is either going to add 30% to the sale price for end users, or it is going to deprive software developers of one third of their income. Either way, a disaster, and definitely the thin end of the wedge. Even if Windows PCs (and Apple Macs) never go down the same route (which I doubt), it is likely that the lower cost and higher mobility of Tablets will give them a better future than fixed PCs. The distinction between the Tablets and PCs is becoming ever more blurred. Have you noticed there is a new breed of super-slim, super-light PCs and Macs with Flash Memory instead of hard drives, and the new "Windows Surface" Tablet will have a keyboard in the flap. Windows RT will at least be compatible with the PC version of Windows, so the two technologies are about to converge, very much to the financial gain of Microsoft.

Holidays with Caseworks

I have just had a weeks break in Cornwall, but some how Caseworks never seemed far away! Passing this cafe in St Ives, seemed appropriate somehow.

Then, whilst on a day trip to the Scilly Isles, I received an email from an enquirer in mid-Atlantic - from a senior officer working for Cornwall County Council!

"I was passed your company details by several ASB Practitioners at the recent LGA ASB Conference....

As I\'ve heard such positive things about your bespoke systems ..."

Which was nice, so gives me an excuse to load a photo taken on that day.





Anyway, I did take my laptop with me, and did log in in the evening to respond to urgent emails. I always appreciate the users who recognise that I am working for them during my holidays, like this one from Tracy Gain, in Westminster.

"Thanks Peter.  Sorry you had to pick this up on your leave.  Hope you’re enjoying it though and you’ve found somewhere to go away from the rain!!"

and this one from Paul Guy in Durham

"Hi Peter,

thanks for the response as I wasn’t expecting one until you were back from your holidays so it is appreciated."

Actually we had much better weather in Cornwall than people clearly had in London.

Wishing all my customers a good holiday this year!

Microsoft - more revelations

 Readers of this Blog, will know that I was less than amused when Microsoft killed their Windows Mobile 6 operating system, replacing it with a Version 7 which could not run any of the old software. This left developers like us, with a successful product, forced to re-write our systems and customers forced to buy new hardware. 

I was then even more dismayed to find that commercial envy of Apple's profits had led them down the road of trying to make money out of every piece of software loaded on their phone with their own equivalent of iTunes. This was the final straw for us, and we have migrated to Andoid for our next version of Caseworks Mobile. I note that another UK company in the same position - Orchard Mobile - has made the same decision.

Then I pointed out that the current method of selling MS Office with a 3 month trial and a paid-for release code, is misleading, forces customers to pay as much as they have for their PC, with only one copy for the one machine compared to three installs if they had bought the disk (for the same price). This is a product which is reputed to have a 60% profit margin for Microsoft.

Windows 7 phone                                                                                       Windows 8 phone
More recently I reported that the new Windows RT for their tablet, like the phone, would also allow software to be loaded only from Microsoft and would restrict any alternative browsers and would be engineered to give Microsoft-written software access to hardware facilities not available to third parties.

I have just learned that Microsoft are bringing out a new Windows Mobile 8 phone, which is completely incompatible with ANY current phone running  Windows Mobile 7! So Nokia who rather unwisely went into a strategic partnership with Microsoft will see their sales of current phones plummet and all users who actually like the Windows Mobile 7, will be forced to upgrade their phone as well as their OS (and of course, pay for both). You also have to have some sympathy for Microsoft's other strategic partners, like HTC, who apparently were  frozen out of the Tablet development because they wanted to include their excellent "Intellisense Overlay" and vendors like HP and Acer who will find that if they develop hardware for Windows RT, they will be competing directly with Microsoft who supply their Operating System, because the new "Surface Tablet" is actually going to be manufactured by Microsoft.

A more serious smart phone? - Android with HTC Intellisense

The message could not be clearer. Microsoft is a money making machine, owing no loyalty to anyone. It is determined to make its profits by being ruthless - not though creativity and innovation like Apple or Google.

Then I came across this link on the internet, which went a long way to explain how this sorry state of affairs has come about:-  http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/03/the-terrible-management-technique-that-cost-microsoft-its-creativity/  For those who haven't got time to read all of it, the following quote gives you a flavour:-

".... Microsoft had a touch-screen e-reader developed in 1998, but Bill Gates binned it because he “‘didn’t like the user interface, because it didn't look like Windows,’ a programmer involved in the project recalls.” The team that developed the reader was told to stop coming up with new ideas and instead work on software for Microsoft Office that would be instantly profitable. A founder of the group says, “We couldn't be focused anymore on developing technology that was effective for consumers. Instead, all of a sudden we had to look at this and say, ‘How are we going to use this to make money?’

I rest my case..

Flower Show, Caseworks and Android

The title of my Blog this week seems to be an unlikely combination of subjects, however the Hampton Court Flower show which I visited this week, filled me with fresh inspiration - for our Android App.  One of the displays was about Anti-Social Behaviour and built an attractive floral display into what would otherwise be described as Fly Tipping.  This was the scene:-

So I grabbed my Android Phone, opened the HUBSolutions Estate Scoring App, snapped a couple of pictures from within the app, and used the Housemark pictorial menu to give it a score of "Unacceptable". This is the result:-

Readers who have seen earlier versions of the App in previous Blogs, will notice that it has come on a long way. We now have a very consistent format, with each question preceded by a pictorial icon.

Functionality is now getting really exciting, with phone numbers, email addresses and map coordinates, downloaded from Caseworks, able to bring up the phone's dialler, SMS and Mapping tools.

More on this in the next blog...

Clock Watching on Caseworks

We have recently introduced a comprehensive system monitoring routine in Caseworks. The benefits of this to us and customers are enormous. We can monitor system issues, without waiting for any customer information. We can identify any procedures which are running slowly and address them - something we have already done. It is also an enormous security protection, as we can monitor in real time unsuccessful logins and the exact record which each user viewed or updated.

However, the analysis of the server and of the way that users use the system and when is equally fascinating.

On server analysis we are pleased to report that users using our hosted system are experiencing 98.2% of transactions within 5 seconds.

On user analysis, the distribution of usage over time is amazing at both ends of the spectrum, as the chart below shows. Note that some users are logging in before 8am and after 7pm. Unbelievably, one user from London Borough of Enfield logged in after midnight and three users from Gloucester City Homes, Aurora and Croydon logged in before 7am.

In the current economic climate, where the public sector has come under sustained political attack, this kind of dedication to duty should be recognised

Windows RT

Welcome to my Linked In followers - I have only just discovered how to link in the Blog!

The good news, was that Microsoft are developing Windows 8 to be finger friendly and work properly on touch-sensitive devices. Although many companies have tried to launch Windows Tablets, they have been pretty much thwarted by the poor user experience which the little corner boxes and icons give when trying to control Windows software, and, as a result Apple and Android have raced away with the market share.

This was bad news for those of us who have written Windows applications, because the tablet format has much to offer for users who are not desk-bound. Consequently we have got into writing for Android where the same software will work on Smart Phones and Tablets.

The bad news - very bad news - is that Microsoft are going to exercise total control over the loading of software and customisation of their new Tablet version of Windows 8, called Windows RT. This is going to make it more profitable for Microsoft, more difficult for third party developers and more expensive for end-users. It will ONLY be possible to load software via their online Application Store, and users of Office will find that they will have to buy the product a second time this way. Users of Open Office, or any browser other than Internet Explorer will find they are completely shut out. So the noble work of the European Union, to force Microsoft to offer a choice of browsers on their PC has been completely undone at a stroke. More than that, if we write applications for Windows RT - as we probably will - our customers will have to pay some of the sales price to Microsoft as well as our developers, as currently happens with every iPad application.

  It isn't just small companies like ours who are affected. HTC, who frankly did a lot to make Windows 6 mobile more user friendly with their Intellisense overlay, have been completely frozen out, because Microsoft do not want suppliers to modify their new floor tile format! TheNextweb.com

I sincerely hope that our customers - Local Authorities - will recognise this piece of negative, uncompetitive commercial greed, and move wholesale to Android for their mobile computing.

By the way, aesthetically, does anyone find the new Windows floor-tile format more pleasing to the eye than the HTC intellisense format - comments please?