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Japan To Do Payroll On Linux

Posted by timothy on from the upstart-operating-system dept.

strannik writes "Yahoo/Reuters is reporting that the The Japanese Government will use Linux for it's payroll system. Fujitsu LTD, IBM Japan LTD and OKI Electronic Industry Co. will develop the system by March of 2004. The new system is expected to halve operating costs (to about 350 Billion Yen a year)."

2 of 343 comments (clear)

  1. What does this mean? by locarecords.com · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think clearly there is some serious thinking going on in Government circles about Open Source and technology projects. Has anybody looked at the EU guidelines? They've even set up a special body to promote open and interoperable stuff across the EU... More stuff

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    ---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
  2. Truly a blow to Microsoft and a great Linux coup? by Knife_Edge · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the article it seems like the Japanese government was running their payroll software on a big proprietary unix system anyway, and was looking to upgrade the underlying system. It is not surprising that they picked Linux to do this - they say one of the reasons for the selection is because the hardware it runs on is cheaper. Maybe they ditched some Sun hardware? Some other vendor?

    I'm sure Microsoft wanted them to use their software, but Linux is more likely to win when the competition is another *nix. Microsoft probably couldn't meet the requirements of 'runs old payroll software' or something, no matter how low they could price their software to compete.

    This is a win for Linux, but not that big of a win, considering the details of the situation. This hardly indicates an expanding mindshare for the platform, just ability to cannibalize another *nix with its freeness.