A French government ministry became the latest organisation
to swap its Microsoft systems for open source last
week.
The move highlights a trend among large European organisations,
several of which are shifting to open source to cut costs.
The French Ministry of Equipment will replace 1,500 Windows NT
servers with Mandrakesoft's Linux corporate server software. The
move follows Allied Irish Bank switching 7,500 desktop PCs from
Windows to a Linux-based Java system earlier this month.
In its latest report on open source software adoption, analyst firm
IDC said Western European organisations will spend an estimated
£53m on services based on Linux, open source and free software in
2004, rising to £123m by 2008.
IDC said more public sector organisations will begin open source
migration projects in the next two years.
Dominique Raviart, senior research analyst in IDC's European
services group, said, "Large enterprises have looked cautiously at
free software or Linux. It is quite interesting that the public
sector mainly in Germany, France and a few Nordic countries is now
transitioning from the assessment phase to migration projects.
"The market needs a number of large and visible deals. Recent
announcements in Paris, Munich, and Norway [Bergen] in the public
sector are helping.
"There have been few UK migration projects. However, the Allied
Irish Bank migration of 7,500 desktops from Windows to SuSE, Sun
Star Office and Mozilla may influence the UK market."
Raviart added that the free software and Linux community is capable
of offering large organisations adequate support, help, and tools
over the internet. He also said they tend to release updates and
upgrades much more frequently than proprietary software suppliers.
Neil Macehiter, research director at analyst firm Ovum, said, "The
UK has been less positive as a market to open source, though this
is starting to change. For US open source companies, the UK is not
the first port of call. They tend to go to the rest of Europe
first."