Slashdot Mirror
Rome Moving to Linux
fmstasi writes "La Repubblica, one of the main Italian newspapers, reports shortly about an interview (in Italian) with Mariella Gramaglia, Communication Councillor at the Municipality of Rome. They are planning to start soon trying Linux on the desktop: 'The first tests will concern e-mail, address book software and sharing systems', she says. The Councillor also says that motivations are political rather than economic: 'In the short term, the money saved on license will have to be spent on training'. It seems that there haven't been any reaction yet from Microsoft: 'At Microsoft they know how much we esteem them', she says; 'for example, they are sponsoring a campaign to spread the use of computers among the elderly. And we'll keep on cooperating with them on other projects'. Maybe Microsoft also appreciates that there is (yet) no project of migrating all the clients? The Municipality has about 9,500 clients, so an eventual migration project would be slightly smaller than the one taking place in Munich."
It's pretty clear this is an (empty?) threat to get Microsoft to give them some deals.
Nothing to see here, no real migration in progress.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Aha! Using the threat of a competitor to negotiate lower prices and/or better products/services: I remember something like this... wasn't it called "free competition"?
Eradicating or substituting MS completely is not an easy task (at the moment, maybe not even a possible one), but at least breaking its monopoly seems a target soon to be reached.
And this is really greater news than some PCs migrated to Linux!