I wonder if the guy that authored the article went to the Grants.gov site and did any research at all?

A basic tour of the FAQ explains the Citrix server. It runs a windows session that you log into remotely and can fill out the forms via a browser from Mac, linux, gnu, unix...

I don't know what advantage this little Canadian company (deal signed prior to IBM acquisition) could've offered when major players have cross platform forms and databases that are well known and could've been implemented, one would think, easily... but they (Grants.gov) seem to be going to great lengths to provide multi-platform access beyond saying "run an emulator".

Hate when anyone makes a stupid post, now I'm guilty...

sorry, need another cup of coffee...reread article, he did report on Citrix, unfavorably...first post in response comments looks interesting. Though, would like to know what/why the Citrix was so bad more than the short treatment of anecdotal evidence in article...

.. Note that IBM bought PureEdge ..

Now .. is this a jab from the lost POwerPC account?

I would like to see some corporate memos...

This is something where Apple's lawyers should be all over the government to force them to make the system "open" to Mac browsers. Give 'em something useful to do instead of harrassing rumor sites!

Um, no, this has zero to do with PowerPC. (Did you know that Apple was less than 2% of IBM's chip business?)

Also, IBM will be providing a cross platform solution before November 2006, as promised, and as always has been planned.

Ok, I've thrown together a little something that anyone can download to use Grants.gov on Mac OS X. See:

http://apple.doit.wisc.edu/grants.gov/

This is merely a generic version of the UW-specific version we already had.

Let me see; the justice department spends millions of our tax dollars busting Microsoft's chops over being a monopoly, punishes them for it, then the same government hands them a monopoly for access to the grant system which is supposed to be for everybody. Hello justice dept. are you there?

First, they didn't really punish them for being a monopoly.

Second, this has nothing to do with MS. Unless Microsoft is writing the software, they aren't responsible. So the DOJ can't do anything about it.

Geesh, I hate it when idiots just rant with no idea what they're talking about.

lol...this is coming from a well known idiot ranter?

Re: hello justice... Let me see; the justice department spends millions of our tax dollars busting Microsoft's chops over being a monopoly, punishes them for it, then the same government hands them a monopoly for access to the grant system which is supposed to be for everybody. Hello justice dept. are you there?

First, they didn't really punish them for being a monopoly.

Second, this has nothing to do with MS. Unless Microsoft is writing the software, they aren't responsible. So the DOJ can't do anything about it.

Geesh, I hate it when idiots just rant with no idea what they're talking about.

First: Yes they did punish them; including sanctions, restrictions and monetary penalties.

Second: My comment wasn't about MS, it was about the JUSTICE DEPT which is a branch of the same goverment that has created this situation with the online access of grants. My criticism wasn't aimed at MS but at the government.

"Geesh, I hate it when idiots just rant with no idea what they're talking about." Take a look in the mirror before you say this so you'll know who you're talking to.

getjeffrey: "A new kind of discrimination is born and it has the same effect of race, age, and s** discrimination because it unfairly prefers a particular group of people."

You know, this whole Grants.gov thing pisses me off, but your comment is just ignorant. Comparing this to racism or sexism? Really?? Looking just at the history of the United States, I would say building an entire economy on forced free labor while simultaneously disenfranchising the vast majority of the population are the tiniest bit worse than some sort of computer-platform discrimination.

The Feds should fix this as soon as possible, and I think we're justified in being pissed until they do. But Christ, let's keep things in perspective, shall we?

Just a quick note to say that this is already listed on VT (in case it was missed...). Thanks again UW!

My organiztion has been working with the Citrix solution for about a month now, and it works great. Just follow the directions. The bundle from UW is even better. It would be nice to have an OS X native verison of PureEdge, but this works fine for now.

First: Yes they did punish them; including sanctions, restrictions and monetary penalties.

The biggest sanction they got was that they had to keep the DOJ informed on their new offerings. Oh, and they had to stop charging different prices for windows. But any penalties or restrictions were just slaps on the wrist and didn't affect MS at all. Certainly not anything that should have happened after a company was found guilty of being a monopoly and using that position unlawfully and anticompetitivlely.

Second: My comment wasn't about MS, it was about the JUSTICE DEPT which is a branch of the same goverment that has created this situation with the online access of grants. My criticism wasn't aimed at MS but at the government.

And what does the DOJ have to do with a website? Nothing. Its not their job to make sure people make websites that work with any particular browser. Nor is it in their purview to be chasing down any and all gov't agencies to make sure that software written is cross-platform (because, like it or not, the gov't is mostly a windows house, and, as such, software is going to be tied to that platform).

"And what does the DOJ have to do with a website? Nothing. Its not their job to make sure people make websites that work with any particular browser. Nor is it in their purview to be chasing down any and all gov't agencies to make sure that software written is cross-platform (because, like it or not, the gov't is mostly a windows house, and, as such, software is going to be tied to that platform)."

In this particular case it has everything to do with it since it's the same federal government over which it has jurisdiction. It is the job of the justice dept and law enforcement officials to enforce the law and any judgements; especially in such a high-profile case as this was with MS. The federal government should NOT be sanctioning a company with restrictions for anti-trust/monopoly behavior and then proceed to violate those very sanctions with it's own services.

In this particular case it has everything to do with it since it's the same federal government over which it has jurisdiction. It is the job of the justice dept and law enforcement officials to enforce the law and any judgements; especially in such a high-profile case as this was with MS. The federal government should NOT be sanctioning a company with restrictions for anti-trust/monopoly behavior and then proceed to violate those very sanctions with it's own services.

Right, but the law they need to enforce are against MS, not against whatever government agency is involved here. If they were to come in and force a change, they would actually be costing the gov't (and, in turn, the people) money to enforce this change (which, BTW, would have no basis in law to do such a thing, common sense aside).

for providing the image.

Let's do hope for a Mac-pureedge in November.

What worries me is how quickly it's taken someone OUTSIDE the project to come up with AND implement Citrix as a solution, given the money spent so far. Citrix is a fairly well known solution in the IT world.

Linux and other Unix based systems such as Solaris are also very popular in academic institutions - in some places more so that Macs - again, something that should have been considered.

(Anyone remember where the Web started and on which platform? Give you a clue, it was so advanced, it took them 18 months to re-implement even the browser part onto another OS, and you're looking at part of it now).

The problem is probably with putting the contract out to tender without a well-defined spec. Very few web development companies know how to write browser independent sites (don't forget that IE forces you to break standards in places to work around features in it's ECMAScript implementation - it's also far more forgiving of sloppy coders).

My firm has even started looking at Flash (Flex) as a more viable way of deploying a cross-browser / cross-platform client.