[plug] Read this and wonder out loud, PLUGers

[Leon Brooks]

On Thursday 16 May 2002 23:26, Harry McNally wrote:
> "This will result in a saving to Victorian taxpayers of more than
> AU$19 million on the retail value of desktop software," said the Minister
> for Information and Communication Technology, Marsha Thomson.

Marsha, what government pays full retail for the products it uses? You've been 
well and truly had. You could probably get far better savings than 20% simply 
by shopping around Microsoft OEMs for a day. No wonder they're happy to kick 
$5 million of it back. Why didn't you even ask for a further $5M discount?

That's not a saving, that's a loss, probably in the $30-40 million dollar 
range, and more importantly not counting further savings that could be 
realised by Open Source, e.g. not having to buy virus scanner software as 
well.

You've also done a lot of Australian developers out of a major opportunity for 
local participation, preferring instead to make our balance of trade worse 
and support only the local sales office of an incredibly well cashed-up 
convicted monopolist and software pirate.

Now... how do I say all of that *nicely*? Or can I?

Cheers; Leon