Free Site License To Online Office Suite For Indiana Residents
from the how-will-Microsoft-respond? dept
Last year, we had a story about the city of Houston ditching Microsoft in favor of an online office suite called SimDesk. There hadn't been much news out of SimDesk since then, but Broadband Reports points us to a story about a new SimDesk deal with the state of Indiana to provide SimDesk for free to every state resident for at least two years (and possibly longer). It sounds similar to some "site licenses" that many companies offer their employees or which universities offer their students, though SimDesk isn't getting paid for this. Instead, they seem to be doing it in exchange for an investment. Microsoft (just as they did in Houston) is likely to cry foul, and complain that the state is competing unfairly against them. It's also unclear from the article how they prove who is an Indiana resident (the site appears to require an address, but I imagine that could be faked). Also, what happens if someone moves out of Indiana? Either way, the state could just point people to something like OpenOffice, which is already free if they really just wanted people to have a free office suite, instead of having to set up a special SimIndiana site.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
