

US DoD signs $617 million Windows 8 licensing deal - 6thSigma
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jan13/01-04DoDPR.aspx

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benoits
The title is very wrong and the HN comments so far miss the point that windows
is a tiny portion of that deal. I don't know the details, but judging by the
products involved, I would say no more than 5-10%. Exchange, Sharepoint, all
of Office client and server suites, SQL maybe some private cloud,
virtualization, monitoring software, dedicated support, maybe some custom DoD
regulatory stuff for records management and whatnot, that's what they're
paying for.

I do know that the Army was making extensive use of Sharepoint on the fields
in Irak for example.

~~~
dkhenry
Also this wasn't a deal with microsoft it was a deal with Insight Enterprises
so expect a large portion of that deal to go towards consulting

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dkhenry
In reality this isn't that much money. When you consider that the entirity of
the DoD runs on Exchange. They are heavy users of sharepoint and in addition
to all the Desktops the DoD uses Windows on most of their deployed systems you
quickly get to a staggering number of desktops and systems. Then we can start
on office by then your at maybe half the actual cost. If you look this was
sold to a reseller and I would venture a guess that a good chunk is for actual
deployments integrating CaC cards and working with Network operators.

While I would fully support the DoD taking the plung and switching over to
Linux for desktops the truth is I don't think there is a Linux vendor out
there (Including Red Hat and Oracle ) that has the support infrastructure to
deal with the amount of support the DoD will require. It would make more sense
to get the DoD migrated to a standards based deployment that was inter-
operable between divisions and vendors. Then you would see Linux support shops
start to take away friendly divisions and slowly get market share. Without
that your never going to see anything but a Microsoft monopoly.

~~~
therobot24
Also if i recall correctly with Windows it was much easier to make OS images
(modifying straight from the master gold images), while RedHat and OpenSUSE
merely came with a long list of configurations to perform on the PC in meeting
the requirements in DoD 8500-2. Granted full deployment would probably change
this, however to be used software gets checked out for 'networthiness', and
unfortunately there isn't a lot of COTS software for linux. Switching from
anything but Windows would be overly expensive - just isn't worth it as long
as Windows maintains a good level of backward compatibility (unlike Apple).

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bascule
My understanding of Windows (which I admittedly have not used day-to-day for
the past two years) is that most businesses have typically upgraded on "off-
years" (or to make an analogy to Intel's tick-tock yearly release schedule,
let's call them "tock" years)

If I understand correctly, the upgrade path looks something like NT4 => XP =>
Windows 7, skipping Windows 2000 and Windows Vista.

I've not heard of a large customer like this adopting such an experimental
release. It certainly seems strange to me, especially considering Windows 8's
tepid reception in the marketplace.

Anyone understand the reasoning for adopting this release instead of holding
out for the next one, where (hopefully) all the egregious mistakes they've
made redesigning the UI will have some sort of acceptable resolution?

~~~
dkhenry
The DoD was heavy users of every version of windows thats been released. For a
while there was a large number of users and divisions that stuck with XP, but
for the most part they just get the newest thing out there. The DoD doesn't
operate like a giant corporation they are more like thousands of corporations
that have a weird and convoluted relationship to each other.

~~~
sliverstorm
There's probably quite a bit of infrastructure still on XP though, which could
help explain a move to Win8

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rdtsc
Interesting, Ubuntu could help if they wanted to save money, but unfortunately
Ubuntu has not gone through the hoops of getting official rubber stamp
certifications that say Redhat's RHEL has
[http://www.redhat.com/solutions/industry/government/certific...](http://www.redhat.com/solutions/industry/government/certifications.html)

There a good amount of money to be made selling software to the government.
They are easily deceived and manipulated to over pay for support as well.

You just have to have someone full time who is trained in navigating the red
tape and the network of connections.

~~~
dkhenry
Ubuntu ( and Debian ) are approved for use. They just might require a specific
setup and might require verification they are secure, while RHEL can be used
out of the box.

~~~
rdtsc
Do you have more info on this?

So far we found it is easier to just use RHEL for everything. Up until just
recently only RHEL 5 (but now also RHEL 6) since it has full FIPS140-2 and
EAL4 certifications.

~~~
dkhenry
DISA has their list of approved Operating Systems. You can request they
approve your configuration if its not already on the list and they will run
Retina scans and other checks on it to verify it is secure and then you can
use it. Some products like RHEL are pre-vetted so you can just say I am using
RHEL and check off that box on the form you must submit to your CTO every now
and then. At least that's the way it was where I worked.

I would use more nouns to describe everything and even give you a link to the
site, but I think its CaC secured and I left the DoD a few years ago because
of these very kinds of issues so I no longer have all this memorized.

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malkia
And this, after Biden said that he wants to cut $20B from the DoD spending...
Really wouldn't be cheaper with something else? Maybe I'm missing something,
but a Windows OS by itself takes probably couple to dozen GB, and if this is
installed on a tablet device, or even on SSD laptop - this takes significant
amount of space (probably to solve SxS issues (dll side-by side versions)
which also grows quite big with newer updates).

And then you would have to instruct your personnel to learn two interfaces -
Metro, or who knows how it's called, and the old one.

And for that all monitors better be touch-capable, otherwise - what's the
point of Windows 8?

I simply don't get it... Me & My wife are both using OSX, and we are happy,
and while I understand that this is probably more expensive (or maybe... not)
- there is completely free OS alternatives - not one, but at least couple
decent.

If a big portion of the internet is built behind free OS, I don't see why DoD
can't go with that option too.

~~~
kvb
Perhaps running their existing applications is a consideration? Or retraining
costs? There are plenty of reasons that the total cost of ownership might be
lower with Windows.

~~~
greghinch
Agreed, retraining and existing software costs probably make this transition
not as overall expensive as it sounds. Now that being said, it would be nice
to know that part of the ongoing cost-cutting would be switching specific
groups to open source over time so that retraining and existing software
becomes a non-issue

~~~
sliverstorm
Switching at the level of groups sounds like a terrible idea. Suddenly nobody
is using the same software. You think an MS Office-only environment is bad?
Try an environment with MS Office, Open Office, Star Office, and Google Docs
all used as SOP in different parts of the company.

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peripetylabs
You would think these folks could write their own OS for that kind of money.

~~~
neurotech1
I think its a good idea, except there is some ass-backwards rules to stop
this; OMB Circular A-130. The Senate also added to the NDAA 2013 to ensure a
"less expensive" commercial software is used.

"The bill indicates that Accumulo may violate OMB Circular A-130, a government
policy that bars agencies from building software if it’s less expensive to use
commercial software that’s already available. And according to one
congressional staffer who worked on the bill, this is indeed the case. He
asked that his name not be used in this story, as he’s not authorized to speak
with the press." [http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/nsa-accumulo-
go...](http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/nsa-accumulo-google-
bigtable/)

~~~
peripetylabs
Ah, why am I still surprised... When you can't compete on technical merit,
legislate away the competition!

~~~
neurotech1
Exactly. It's not they couldn't make requirements unable to be fulfilled by
commercial software. It's that Senators and Congressman start getting
complaints from the lobbyists representing the competition, and get
legislation passed to make it go away.

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asdfs
Was the DoD primarily using Windows XP up to this point? It would make sense
for them to move to 8 if that was the case, given the longer support lifetime.

~~~
Jtsummers
Windows 7 for most, XP for some groups and specific applications.

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malkia
Dear DoD, if you are missing the Start Button, please consider installing
Classic Shell - <http://classicshell.sourceforge.net> :)

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snarkyturtle
Iirc, Windows 8 has a lot of optimization/improvements going on behind the
Metro UI so it's a sound investment to keep their systems future-proof.
Everyone's bitching about Metro UI but I'd think for a deal that big they
could probably get Microsoft to fork over a non-Metro version if needed. Plus
from my friends that work in the DoD they're heavily Windows-based (Windows
Server/IIS/ASP/.NET) so it makes sense to continue that instead of retraining
for a *nix based system.

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thinkbohemian
When this happened in Egypt is spawned protests:
[http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/activists-protest-
micro...](http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/activists-protest-microsoft-
deal) while I would support an all linux DoD, I wish even more that one day I
might be passionate enough to do something more about it.

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eande
And the city of Munich, which is small compared to DoD users saved $17Mill by
switching all their users over to Linux.

~~~
dfc
The city of Munich and DoD have so little in common that I do not understand
how you could possibly think this was relevant.

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briandear
The classified systems will still use Linux, luckily.

~~~
seivan
Yeah, would have been fun to see NSA to operate under Windows. ;-)

~~~
taftster
Um, you might want to check out that National Geographic video on the NSA...
You'll see a few Linux screenshots, but most of the screens are Windows.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Quq67h8j_OY>

Now as to their backend systems, who knows.

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mtgx
Is the majority of the DoD employees going to use touchscreen computers? If
not, the Metro interface will just get in their way, and they'll need some
retraining, too. If anything they should've gone with Windows 7. I think it's
supported at least until 2020 (and if Windows 8/9 doesn't catch off, probably
longer).

Also, the deal makes it to about $2,000 per user per 3 years. Isn't
that...expensive? How much would the taxpayers have saved if they had gone
Linux?

~~~
wrath
Unfortunately there's no support organization big enough to implement Linux in
the dod. I would think that only Microsoft has the experience to support such
customers with endless use cases.

~~~
cdrxndr
IBM? 400k employees and they kinda know their *nix.

