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The French Say Au Revoir to Microsoft Software
By David Garrett
November 28, 2006 9:39AM

Currently, a number of French ministries and government bureaus run
Linux, but only on servers. France's Senate and National Assembly
will be the first to use Linux on workstations, although neither one
has announced which flavor of Linux it plans to use instead of
Microsoft's software next year.

The French parliament has said au revoir to Microsoft. Starting in
June of next year, French deputies will use desktops and servers
running Linux, Mozilla's Firefox Web browser, and OpenOffice.org, a
free open-source alternative to Microsoft's Office software.
For day-to-day documents, French members of parliament and their
staff will use OpenOffice.org, currently in version 2.0.4 and
designed to compete directly with Microsoft's Office System.

With versions available in languages from Arabic to Welsh,
OpenOffice.org includes several modules to compete with Microsoft
Office: Writer, a word processor; Calc, a spreadsheet program;
Impress, a presentation package; and Draw, a software package for
designing graphics. OpenOffice.org also includes Base, a database
tool that competes with Microsoft's Access.

Why the change? The French parliament, composed of an upper chamber
(le Senat, or Senate) and a lower chamber (l'Assemblee Nationale, or
National Assembly), believes it can save money using open-source
software, despite the near-term costs of switching from Microsoft
systems and retraining all employees.

But that is a matter of some debate.

Open Debate

"The evidence on the cost savings attributable to a switch to Linux
has been mixed," according to Chris Swenson, director of software
industry analysis at research group NPD. "There has been some
evidence that companies have to spend a good deal on training and
support after you deploy the operating system."

Currently, a number of French ministries and government bureaus run
Linux, but only on servers. The Senate and National Assembly will be
the first to use Linux on workstations, although neither one has
announced which flavor of Linux it plans to use. According to
Swenson, that could make all the difference.

"If you buy your software from a Linux vendor like Red Hat, you
obviously have to pay for licenses, support, and maintenance," he
said, adding that finding and recruiting Linux experts to run
enterprise I.T. systems can sometimes be harder than finding
Microsoft specialists.

"The net net," said Swenson, is that "the average company or
organization can probably save some money by switching to Linux, but
deploying software from an established Linux vendor certainly isn't
free."

Microsoft Worry?

Microsoft software runs the vast majority of U.S. computers,
including laptops, desktops, and servers, at all levels of
government, but in the U.S. House, members can use the software they
like. "Microsoft is probably the most common," said Salley Collins,
press secretary for the Committee on House Administration. "But that
having been said, it's up to every individual office and committee to
choose their own software."

Still, resistance to Microsoft is growing in small but devoted groups
of open-source activists. Among the best-known is Peter Quinn, former
CTO of Massachusetts, who resigned his position after his vocal
support for the OpenDocument Format (ODF) drew massive resistance and
at times vocal critique.

Another notable is CPTech, The Consumer Project on Technology, an
organization founded by consumer-rights activist Ralph Nader to
examine the role of intellectual property and knowledge production in
the tech world. CPTech's director, James Love, has called for the
widespread adoption of ODF.

Should Microsoft worry? The Redmond giant is far from losing its grip
on the world's desktops, and when CEO Steve Ballmer debuts the new
versions of Office, Windows, and Exchange this week at an event in
New York, Microsoft will trigger yet another upgrade cycle that will
continue to boost its bottom line, if history is any guide.

But recent moves by Microsoft -- including a wide-ranging and widely
debated deal with Novell, makers of SuSE Linux -- show that even
Ballmer and Co. is keeping a close eye on open source.

************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology
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