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Tamil Nadu (India) Shutting the Door On Microsoft

Posted by kdawson on from the penguins-on-the-march dept.

aprasadh writes "The government of Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India, has begun initiatives to convert all of their IT systems fully to OSS-based software. (The link is a copy of a news item that appeared recently in the Deccan Chronicle, an English-language daily.) The managing director of the IT procurement, consulting, and training agency for the Tamil Nadu government describes the reasons why he has chosen OSS, and also how he dealt with Microsoft executives." From the article: "Initially, 99 per cent of government systems have been running on Microsoft systems but then 2007 will be a watershed year for the state IT sector... We have already dispatched 6,500 Linux systems to village panchayats and another 6,100 Acer desktop systems with Suse Linux operating systems are on their way. We are procuring 20,000 desktop systems for schools, which will run only on Suse Linux... I require at least 500 trainers to train 30,000 state officials across Tamil Nadu in the next six months."

4 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. Pity it's only Linux - what about the alternative? by AEton · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think it's pretty clear that the Tamils should run Tiger.

    --
    We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
  2. It's a scam! by aussie_a · · Score: 4, Funny

    I require at least 500 trainers to train 30,000 state officials across Tamil Nadu in the next six months. If anyone is interested then please deposit a small sum of money $1,000 into my bank account to cover the cost of getting your visa and other associated paperwork. Because I am so desperate for trainers I will be paying $100,000 so it is really only a very small sum of money.
  3. Re:What a laugh! by mcvos · · Score: 4, Funny
    Here's a country that's just learned to count, and it thinks it can go up against the most powerful country in the world, with a long history of mathematical excellence.

    "Just learned to count"? I know the US educational system has a bad reputation, but isn't this a bit of an exaggeration?

  4. that' nice, because... by born4fun · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... every time an IT system is converted from Windows to OSS, a chair in Redmond gets its wings!