German Foreign Ministry Migrates Desktops To OSS

ruphus13 writes "Here's another example of 'German Engineering' — The Foreign Ministry in Germany is migrating all of its 11,000 desktops to GNU/Linux and other open source applications. According to the article, 'this has drastically reduced maintenance costs in comparison with other ministries. "The Foreign Ministry is running desktops in many far away and some very difficult locations. Yet we spend only one thousand euro per desktop per year. That is far lower than other ministries, that on average spend more than 3000 euro per desktop per year ... Open Source desktops are far cheaper to maintain than proprietary desktop configurations," says Rolf Schuster, a diplomat at the German Embassy in Madrid and the former head of IT at the Foreign Ministry ... "The embassies in Japan and Korea have completely switched over, the embassy in Madrid has been exclusively using GNU/Linux since October last year", Schuster added, calling the migration a success.' The Guardian has additional coverage of the move."

Comments

Good for them

[Vskye]

Well, at least Germany had the balls to stand up to Microsoft and actually go with the GNU/Linux solutions vs most other countries and corporations that just do this to get a discount from Microsoft. Here's a good quote from the article:

The conversation between Ude and Ballmer was confidential, but anyone who knows the Microsoft CEO can guess how it went. Let us say negotiation is not his forte. Ballmer is no more designed for the art of persuasion than the Abrams tank is for delivering meals on wheels.

Why this will never happen in other countries

[jeevesbond]

From the Guardian article:

Another interesting aspect of the Munich decision is that it was not driven simply by cost savings, because industry gossip has it that Ballmer offered heavy discounts on Microsoft software to stave off the threat. This was also the case in the Ministry decision to plump for open source. According to a BBC report, Interior Minister Otto Schily said the move was motivated by a desire to improve security in the nation's computer networks as well as to save public money. 'We are raising computer security by avoiding a monoculture,' he said, 'and we are lowering dependence on a single supplier. And so we are a leader in creating more diversity in the computer field.'

(emphasis mine)

And this is why, ladies and gentlemen, we won't be seeing this in many countries outside Germany. They have a politician who knows what he's talking about, and doesn't pander to the whims of industrial lobbyists.

Never underestimate foreign ministries

[Kupfernigk]

In Europe, these have traditionally been where the most intelligent graduates went. They wrote the book on security. They are bright enough to realise that if they open a branch office in Obscuristan it is going to be easier to get a version of OO customised for the Obscuristani dialect than persuade MS to do it, and know their successors in 100 years time will still be able to read the files. And perhaps they have the smallest concern that the CIA might be able to get information via Windows backdoors.

The real story would be if they got the Interior Ministry to convert. In Europe, that (and the Agriculture Ministry) is usually where the deadbeats end up.