According to the San Antonio Express News, Senator Juan Hinojosa has attached a rider to the bill approving the State’s budget that will require government departments to get written approval before purchasing Vista technology related to an operating system, equipment or licenses.

Hinojosa, Senate Finance Committee vice chairman, said, “We have a lot of problems with the Vista program. It had a lot of bugs. It takes up a lot of memory. It’s not compatible with other equipment, and it’s supposed to be an upgrade from the XP program that is being used by state agencies, and it’s not.”

Microsoft, not surprisingly, was disappointed enough to issue the following statement.

Given our daily work with government agencies and longstanding technology partnership, we’re surprised that the Texas Senate Finance Committee adopted a rider which, in effect, singles out a specific corporation and product for unequal treatment. We hope as the budget continues to go through the process this language will be removed.

The vote on the bill is expected to happen tomorrow.

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At a pre-conference activity last night he encouraged the various open source vendors to make the most of the current economic climate and get out there and start knocking on doors, referring to his own recent experience as an example.

There are companies we’ve been trying to set up meetings with for years that are all of a sudden calling us up and saying ‘We need to talk.’ The more desperate the industry, the more interested people are.

I have to say that I agree. While writing a paper on the topic a couple of years ago, I discovered that one of the biggest struggles potential customers have with the whole concept of open source is actually one of the biggest selling points the movement has – the cost (or lack thereof). Customers believe that the lack of fees is related to a lack of quality in the product, meaning a lot more effort to maintain.

Now that the shrinking IT budget is more important than ever, it’s time for open source vendors to show just how capable their products are compared to those expensive, off-the-shelf solutions that are costing more in annual maintenance fees than the original price of the license.

If the vendors can clearly demonstrate the business value of using their products, they stand a greater chance of getting inside for the long term. This could be a real turning point for the open source movement, but we need to act now – the opportunity won’t be there forever.