France Challenges Microsoft with Open Source Competition

The French government announced this week that it will give "alternative" and open-source software (OSS) companies a chance to win business from Microsoft as the country attempts to cut software prices and offset a mounting deficit. French representatives say that the move isn't an attempt to punish Microsoft or American companies; rather, France just wants to move away from one supplier of state software.

"We are not starting a war against Microsoft or against American companies in the software sector," Renaud Dutreil, minister for civil service, said. "[But Microsoft] must return to being one supplier to the state among others. The competition is open. My estimate is that we can cut the state software bill at least in half."

The plan includes both office-productivity suites and operating platforms such as Windows. Contracts for those types of software are estimated to be worth more than $360 million each. The software will be rolled out over 3 years. OSS solutions such as Linux and OpenOffice.org are definitely a possibility, Dutreil said, noting that such software is "very credible."

Microsoft will fight the migration, according to Christophe Aulnette, managing director of Microsoft France. "[OSS] is not free," he said. "It is very expensive because it shifts the cost to maintenance, services, integration, and training."

End of Article

What ever happend to purchasing software base on needs? You pick the application that best accoplishes your task, you pick the os that runs the application. You pick the hardware that runs the os? There seems to be a lot of noise about huge carts with confused horses tangled up in the reigns behind them.

Bill June 22, 2004

"It is very expensive because it shifts the cost to maintenance, services, integration and training."

As does any software product, including Microsoft offerings.

Daniel Curtis June 22, 2004

It is my understanding that Open Source is open source, meaning that the code that the software is built upon is free and available to the public. If so, why the hell would you want to store extremely senistive governemtn and personal, financial data on it. Since anybody in the world would know about the holes that could quite easily be exploited. Microsoft holes are exploited, but only on the computers of users that don't run windows updates. What about updates for Linux, wont you have to buy a new version in order to get the updates, or do they have a centralized system like Windowsupdate.com? So you have a cost of upgrading to the new OS again. With Windows, you can still get updates even if you are running Windows 95, which, I dont know why you would want to, but you can.

Then again, I'm not the one to bitch since I get my Windows software free from Microsoft by working at Best Buy ;)

Sanel June 23, 2004

Sanel, were you serious when you wrote, "Microsoft holes are exploited, but only on the computers of users that don't run windows updates."?

Tell that to Paul Thurrott, who recently wrote: "...the notebook I had planned to bring was suddenly struck by the most malicious software (malware) I've ever encountered. This Trojan horse got through my defenses despite the fact that I was running the Release Candidate 1 (RC1) version of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) with the firewall turned on." Seems even the experts get burned by exploits. Even the smart ones like Mr. Thurrott. ( http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/42787/42787.html )

Editor's note: To be fair, I did do something idiotic to allow that to happen. But it's a good example of why SP2 won't solve all security problems. --Paul

Wendy June 24, 2004

Your Comments (required):Open source doesn't mean insecure. Microsoft has tons of security issues, even though the code is not out there.

Plus, with tons of programmers looking at open source, security holes are typically plugged a lot faster. In addition, there are tons of viruses for Windows systems but very few for Unix/Linux systems.

Also, it's well known that hackers aren't the biggest security problem. Dissatisfied employees are, and no computer system is going to stop dissatisfied employees from hijacking info.

Name (required):JP June 24, 2004

You must log on before posting a comment.

If you don't have a username & password, please register now.