[nzlug] Linux-friendly banks in NZ?

[cr]

On Friday 02 May 2008 20:36, Mark Foster wrote:

(huge snippage)

>
> In terms of getting non-MS support of of companies, vendors etc, i've seen
> the most success when choosing the vendor-neutral option causes little or
> no disruption to business-as-usual.  Even if we (as the open minded Linux
> friendly people we are) consider the move to say, a standard data format
> (CSV perhaps), as being pretty painless and simple, if the outfit has an
> internal process driven around some other standard, which would be painful
> to move away from, then their answer will be no (or at least, not in a
> hurry) until they can practically and economically change their backend.
> Assuming they do infact bother.

Errm, 'internal process driven by some other standard'?     That probably 
means, de facto, something concoted by Micro$oft, no?   (At least as far as 
interaction with their customers goes).   Hardly 'standard', much as M$ would 
like everyone to believe so.   

So what happens to the bank's internal processes when M$ decide that everyone 
will be forced to 'upgrade' to, say, Vi$ta?    We all know about M$'s regard 
for standards....

Anyway, more to the point, it might be an excellent idea to _ask_ all the 
banks about the original point and, if changing to a bank that is more 
compatible with open source, let them know why.    If enough people ask then 
they may consider doing it next time they revise their systems.

(And if you come on a web page that only works in Internet Exploiter, or get 
emailed a HTML receipt that only works in Outhouse, contact the originators 
and politely suggest their page would be appreciated by more people if it 
complied with W3C, and their receipt might be better sent in PDF...)

cr