The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Finnish city closer to switch from Windows to Linux

One small step...

Tune into our application security webcast, click here

The Finnish city of Turku has moved closer to switching to Linux, following a preliminarystudy of the platform's suitability. Turku kicked off the investigation earlier this year in response to Microsoft's new licensing terms and conditions, which Turku estimated would cost it €1-€2 million.

Turku has now completed the first part of its investigation, and will now be looking into functionality and effects of a switch over a longer timescale. It will also be taking into consideration likely success of OpenOffice and Linux deployments elsewhere in Europe.

The switch itself isn't likely to disrupt Redmond's coffers overly, but the Turku investigation has attracted widespread interest from other authorities and agencies in Finland, and elsewhere in Europe. The Finnish Finance Ministry is conducting its own investigation.

If Turku goes ahead, it will be introducing OpenOffice, and will be switching over from Windows to Linux gradually, over several years. Turku expects the deployment to cover 3,500-5,000 machines.

Show-offs can read what we are assured is the press release in Finnish here, while super show-offs can even read the entire report in Finnish here. Thanks to the show-offs who did just that and put us straight when we got the story slightly wrong earlier. ®

See what The Register's experts have to say on application security

Don’t Miss

Win a Samsung C6625!

Reg Lucky Draw Windows Mobile handsets up for grabs

Palm_Pre_001_SMIs your cameraphone an oxymoron?

Pic Review iPhone 3G v iPhone 3GS v Palm Pre

Reg black vulture logoReg Mobile and Wireless newsletter is go! go! go!

Site news Email-tasm

Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter

Narrowcasting for the email classes