The story goes that Ballmer interrupted his skiing vacation to drop into Munich and offer them a 90% discount on Microsoft's software, countering that city's Linux and Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) procurement.

It would seem that Ballmer's "generous" offer will not be successful.

According to Heise (for those who read German) and also Babelfish (for all of those who can decipher Germlish), Munich seems set to select SuSE Linux and OpenOffice for all its 14,000 desktop systems, rather than continue to pay off the Vole.

The "network effect" of Munich city government converting to Open Office will likely lead to a tidal wave of defections from Microsoft's software in many government, academic and commercial offices all over Germany.

And there might be repercussions from this in the EU governmental Courts regarding Microsoft attempt to exercise their monopolistic practices.

There's also the interesting footnote that Ballmer sold off 40 million shares of Microsoft stocks, right about the same time he left Munich.

Ballmer should have stayed on Swiss slopes and broken a leg instead. µ