“The Veterans Affairs Department has canned a key enterprise software license agreement for Microsoft products, Nextgov has learned, a move that could save VA nearly 30 percent in annual licensing fees, analysts said,” Bob Brewin reports for Nextgov.
“The department has discontinued its Microsoft Software Assurance for Volume Licensing agreement, which typically requires customers to pay an annual fee of 29 percent for desktop software and server software to lock in discounts on upgrades, Chief Information Officer Roger Baker said in a memo to VA’s information technology staff on March 30, and confirmed by a spokeswoman today,” Brewin reports. “Approximately 300,000 employees use Microsoft operating system and desktop application software.”
MacDailyNews Take: Poor bastards.
Brewin reports, “VA did not respond to a query about how much it spends on Microsoft licenses, but based on past contracts, it easily represents a revenue stream measured in millions of dollars a year… VA has started to shift its computing environment from the standard Microsoft server/desktop environment to smartphones and tablet computers favored by hospital clinicians.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, you mean iPads? If so — that’s what hospital clinicians favor, after all — it’s really okay to write “iPad” instead of the clunky “tablet computers.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jeff A.” for the heads up.]
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