French police: Linux saves us 50 Million
By Bala Shah

Tech giant Microsoft and its proprietary operating systems are being increasingly challenged as more Governments and businesses opt for the cost and flexibility of open source.  Indian State Governments like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have taken a number of steps to ensure they are not locked into proprietary software and its associated restrictions and costs.

Yesterday, the UK Government released a 10-point policy plan to ensure more implementation of open source in the public sector.  British Digital Engagement Minister, Tom Watson, made it clear that he would prefer Open Source software to proprietary software if the costs were the same.  As Open Source is always cheaper, this British Government announcement is a big win for them.  Microsoft may be forced to offer huge discounts to keep its market share.

Quite separately, Arstechnica is reporting that the French national police force saved an estimated 50 million Euros since 2004 by migrating to Ubuntu Linux.  The French Police have moved most of their workstations from Microsoft Windows to Ubuntu Linux and are planning to complete it by 2015.

The French police are quoted as saying it was easier to upgrade from Microsoft XP to Linux than if they had upgraded from Microsoft XP to Vista.