[LINK] French police: we saved 50 million euros by adopting Ubuntu

[Kim Holburn]

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/03/french-police-saves-millions-of-euros-by-adopting-ubuntu.ars
http://tinyurl.com/dneja3

> 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.

....

> 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."


I love that:
"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.

....

> 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.


-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +39 06 855 4294  M: +39 3494957443
mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
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