Linux to Replace Microsoft in German City Government Offices...

[Chuck Young]

Apologies if this was brought up and I missed it...

http://searchwindowsmanageability.techtarget.com/newsItem/0,289139,sid33_gci86
6232,00.html

11/27 08:23
Linux to Replace Microsoft in German City Government Offices
By Julia Werdigier


Schwaebisch Hall, Germany, Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Linux software will replace
programs made by Microsoft Corp. at government offices in Schwaebisch Hall as
the German city seeks to save more than 100,000 euros ($99,255) a year.

The city in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg wants to complete the
software change on its 400 personal computers by the end of 2004, Schwaebisch
Hall said on its Web site.

Schwaebisch Hall is the first German city to stop using Microsoft programs as
part of an agreement between Germany's Interior Minister Otto Schily and
International Business Machines Corp., a distributor of Linux programs. IBM is
pressing to bring the free Linux operating system into mainstream computing.

The accord with the world's biggest seller of computers and related services
is expected to make it easier for city administrations to swap existing
Microsoft software to Linux.

Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, has called Linux a threat to
sales of its Windows operating system, which runs more than 90 percent of
personal computers worldwide.