[frgeek-michiana] SBC/NPower
- From: Tom Brown <tbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Oso Martin <oso@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 19:10:01 -0500
There is an outfit, NPower, funded by Microsoft and SBC, which is providing
discount tech services, consulting and training to nonprofits across the
country.
Read this first: <http://www.techsoup.org/news_article.cfm?newsid=849>
NPower <http://www.npower.org/>
NPower Seattle <http://www.npowerseattle.org/>
NPower Indiana <http://www.npowerin.org/>
NPower is viral where SBC is the state or regional phone monopoly. Their
programs, training and consulting are 100% proprietary and 99% Microsoft.
Through NPower MS offers $25 million in cash and 3-year MS licenses for up
to 50 seats and servers, the whole magilla: XP, Outlook, Office, Exchange,
IIS, Front Page and more. SBC provides a high speed line. HP is in the mix
with Wintel based hardware. The NPower Indiana consultants rave about the
"free" software they are able to distribute to their clients from Microsoft.
The consultant I talked to had never heard of the GPL. She even said that
they assess the technology needs of their clients and recommend "only what
they need." I asked if they ever recommend Free Software Foundation or OSI
approved software or if they ever consider the licensing and TCO problems
related to Microsoft software.
"No."
I mentioned a few common GPL packages: postgresql, openoffice.org, mozilla.
Had she heard of them?
"No."
I could tell she was writing down everything I said.
I believe these folks are well intentioned and sincerely desire to help
nonprofits. The consultant I spoke to was enthusiastic about their
services. But the NPower staff members probably don't have a clue about
Microsoft's and SBC's intentions. Or what the alternatives are.
btw, the Npower home site and the NPower Seattle web site are so Microsoft
that they even cause Opera 7 to improperly render html and css, just like
their Redmond sponsor.
<http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-983500.html>
Tom
tbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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