Also, AFAIR Bill Gates personally and in person intervened and paid a visit to Munich's mayor Christian Ude.
Here is an interview with Christian Ude in which he mentiones that Bill Gates was unable to understand how reying on Microsoft products would make a city "dependent":
> Funnily enough, during the conversation, he kept making new financial offers, including what Microsoft would add to the price, for the school department, for example. They continually became cheaper by a million, another million, another million, and later a dozen million. That's how important the symbol of the renegade state capital of Munich, internationally perceived as an IT stronghold, was to Microsoft.
This was Ballmer though, not gates. Maybe Gates had a separate visit.
Thank you, that's what I had in mind. The timeline is an amusing read, but as I read it it's really a mix of "buttons in the wrong places" and lobbying.
The thing which stood out to me was the office suite incompatibility statement.
It's probably a legit complaint, but still potentially the fault of Microsoft. People learn how to use Excel, and the free alternative suites don't have all the same functionality (or if they do, it's not the same UI so you have to re-learn it).
And with as prolific as Office is, you're going to have to open office documents. If that doesn't work cleanly, that's a big issue.
I haven't looked into if whatever incompatibilities are a result of Microsoft pressure or technical shenanigans, or it just being a natural consequence of the free suites being less well funded in their development efforts.
I don't think it's impossible to run an enterprise with FOSS - but it is not easy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux
It was about many things.