That is another shot in the arm for linux.Cheers! On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 8:32 AM, Anivar Aravind <ani...@movingrepublic.org>wrote:
> > Kerala Police is also on same way :-) - Anivar > > Source: Ars Technica > > http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/03/french-police-saves-millions-of-euros-by-adopting-ubuntu.ars > > French police: we saved millions of euros by adopting Ubuntu > > A recent report has revealed that France's national police force has > saved an estimated 50 million euros since 2004 by adopting open source > software and migrating a portion of the organization's workstations to > Ubuntu Linux. They plan to roll out the Linux distro to all 90,000 of > their workstations by 2015. > > By Ryan Paul | Last updated March 11, 2009 7:10 PM CT > > France's Gendarmerie Nationale, the country's national police force, > says it has saved millions of dollars by migrating its desktop > software infrastructure away from Microsoft Windows and replacing it > with the Ubuntu Linux distribution.The Gendarmerie began its > transition to open source software in 2005 when it replaced Microsoft > Office with OpenOffice.org across the entire organization. It > gradually adopted other open source software applications, including > Firefox and Thunderbird. After the launch of Windows Vista in 2006, it > decided to phase out Windows and incrementally migrate to Ubuntu. > > At the current stage of the migration, it has adopted Ubuntu on 5,000 > workstations. Based on the success of this pilot migration, it plans > to move forward and switch a total of 15,000 workstations to Ubuntu by > the end of the year. It aims to have the entire organization, and all > 90,000 of its workstations, running the Linux distribution by 2015. > > A report published by the European Commission's Open Source > Observatory provides some details from a recent presentation given by > Gendarmerie Lieutenant-Colonel Xavier Guimard, who says that the > Gendarmerie has been able to reduced its annual IT budget by 70 > percent without having to reduce its capabilities. > > Since 2004, he says that the Gendarmerie has saved up to €50 million > on licensing and maintenance costs as a result of the migration > strategy. He believes that the move from Windows to Ubuntu posed fewer > challenges than the organization would have faced if it had updated to > Windows Vista. > > "Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many > advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users," > said Lt. Col. Guimard. "Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very > easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games > are not our priority." > > Support for open standards is a key part of the Gendarmerie's emerging > IT policy. Standards-based technologies give it more freedom to choose > which vendors it adopts and also makes it easier for the Gendarmerie > to interoperate with other government networks. It has found that open > source software is better at handling open standards. Linux has also > simplified remote maintenance tasks. > > Linux has also been adopted by several other government agencies in > France. The French National Assembly runs Ubuntu on over 1,000 > workstations and the Ministry of Agriculture uses Mandriva Linux. > > The success of the Gendarmerie Ubuntu migration reflects several > emerging trends in IT. First, it represents the rising influence of > community-driven distros which are largely supported internally by the > organizations that adopt them. Analysts have noted a growing > preference for this approach which can be cheaper than adopting a > conventional enterprise distro like Red Hat with annual commercial > support contracts. > > The Gendarmerie migration also demonstrates the significant cost > savings that governments can get from adopting open source software. > As the global financial downturn continues to put pressure on budgets, > governments are going to increasingly look to open source software as > a way to cut IT costs. We have recently seen moves in this direction > from Canada and the UK. > > > > > > -- > Any responsible politician should be encouraging a home grown Free > Software industry because it creates the basis for future jobs. > Learning Windows is like learning to eat every meal at McDonalds. > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ "Freedom is the only law". "Freedom Unplugged" http://www.ilug-tvm.org You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ilug-tvm" group. To post to this group, send email to ilug-tvm@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ilug-tvm-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For details visit the website: www.ilug-tvm.org or the google group page: http://groups.google.com/group/ilug-tvm?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
