Police in France have abandoned Windows XP, citing too much reliance on Microsoft and an interest in Linux’s lower price. Meanwhile Bill Gates was trying to hand out more “free” training on Microsoft products in Paris.

In France, the police force is governed by one central body and that branch of government uses 70,000 desktop computers, according to the Web in France Magazine.

Ubuntu Linux will be installed on all of these machines, replacing Windows XP by 2014.

Deputy director of the gendarmerie’s IT department, Nicolas Geraud says “the reasons behind the move are tri-fold. First, to reduce the force’s reliance on one company and offer more choice by diversifying IT suppliers; second, to give the gendarmerie control and oversight of the operating system; and third — cost. This last might have been reason enough all by itself. The move away from Microsoft licensed products is saving the gendarmerie about seven million euros (10.3 million dollars) a year for all its PCs.”

Of course Microsoft thinks that’s a mistake, claiming that running Windows XP or Vista actually will save money because trained consultants are readily available, and asserts that Linux systems create more integration issues.

“With its 100,000 employees, the French gendarmerie is the largest administration to shift to open sourcing for its operating system, but not France’s first. The National Assembly adopted Ubuntu’s version of Linux for its 1,200 desktop PCs last year.”

That’s a lot of lost business for Microsoft, and it hints at growing problems for the company as it tries to compete with web-based software and an increasingly powerful Linux and open source movement.

Gates may be retiring just in time.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 12:18 am under Linux, Microsoft, Open source, Vista.

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