au revoir to Microsoft

The French Say Au Revoir to Microsoft Software.

By David Garrett

Currently, a number of French ministries and government bureaus run Linux, but only on servers. France's Senate and National Assembly will be the first to use Linux on workstations, although neither one has announced which flavor of Linux it plans to use instead of Microsoft's software next year.

The French parliament has said au revoir to Microsoft. Starting in June of next year, French deputies will use desktops and servers running Linux, Mozilla's Firefox Web browser, and OpenOffice.org, a free open-source alternative to Microsoft's Office software.

For day-to-day documents, French members of parliament and their staff will use OpenOffice.org, currently in version 2.0.4 and designed to compete directly with Microsoft's Office System.

With versions available in languages from Arabic to Welsh, OpenOffice.org includes several modules to compete with Microsoft Office: Writer, a word processor; Calc, a spreadsheet program; Impress, a presentation package; and Draw, a software package for designing graphics. OpenOffice.org also includes Base, a database tool that competes with Microsoft's Access.

Why the change? The French parliament, composed of an upper chamber (le Senat, or Senate) and a lower chamber (l'Assemblee Nationale, or National Assembly), believes it can save money using open-source software, despite the near-term costs of switching from Microsoft systems and retraining all employees.

But that is a matter of some debate...

more...
http://linkme2.net/as


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