Licensing the Republic of Indonesia

Have u all heard of the government have signed an MoU with Microsoft regarding licensing legal software in (all) government institution?

This means the government will be paying Microsoft lots of money just for the license. In conjunction, Microsoft will also give away 35,496 MS Windows 177,480 MS Office license worth 676 billion Rupiah (US$ 1=Rp 9,065)

However the lisences are valid ONLY if the software is installed in a Intel Pentium III class processors. That means if they upgrade the hardware, the lisence is not valid anymore. At present time, how long would u think a P3 computer can last? Running Windows XP?

And still the gift from Microsoft will not cover all PCs in the government. It is estimated that the government will spend another Rp 400 billion for the lisence of the rest of the PCs for the next 2 years.

I personally find this ridiculous...
If I am allowed to ask the question "What are the primary functions of computer in (most) government agencies?" I would say office use.. And I bet that almost all users have no idea how to make use most of the great features of MS Office or Windows for all it matters.

They are just typing reports, making calculations in word processor and spreadsheet; some (and little if I may say) use it for presentations (in a bad design). In which all of it can be found in OpenOffice.org. I'm not against Microsoft as I say they make good products, but considering that the people (who work their asses to live AND pay tax) are still suffering in this country. That tons of money can be diverted to other aspects. It makes more sense buying a nuclear warhead to protect this country than spending on lisence... (It's just a joke.. haha..)

Almost all (or should I say "all") features in MS Office that the government officials are using are in OpenOffice.org. They don't know macro or .NET integration for all that matter; they're just using it to type letters.

Get half of the lisencing fund to train all the users is enough I suppose. Or perhaps throw a US$ 3 million dollars to a professional developers to make a much better Linux operating system in Indonesian?

Can it be that even Microsoft has learned how to bribe in this country? That it has been in the blood of the government to be bribed to get something? Who knows.. ^_^