The Register®

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/14/paris_oss_debate/

Paris may favour gradual switch from MS to open source

'Big bang' costs high, says study

By John Lettice

Posted in Operating Systems, 14th October 2004 13:29 GMT

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A Parisian road to Linuxism seems the most likely future for the Paris municipality's IT systems, following the presentation of a study by Unilog yesterday. The cost of a complete switch over to open source for Paris, reports Libération, [1] would have been too great at €57 million over five years, but it was nevertheless seen as being vital to overcome the city's dependence on one "quasi-monopolistic supplier."

We have no idea who François Dagnaud could possibly have in mind here, but the city's inclination to go for a "third way" is unsurprising. In common with many other organisations the Paris municipality faces lock-in, and in this case 75 per cent of the cost of a full-scale switch would be accounted for support and retraining costs.

But as Libération reports a number of representatives in favour of a gradual but progressive switch to free software saying, it isn't just a matter of cost. Green rep Marie-Pierre Martinet meanwhile observed that she hoped the discussions wouldn't be used simply as a negotiating ploy to achieve price cuts from Microsoft.

Faced with a possible Parisian defection earlier this year Microsoft cut its prices [2] by almost 60 per cent. Paris is due to make the final decision on its IT future by early next year. ®

Related stories:

MS offers 57% price cut as Paris tilts to open source [3]
Munich embraces the penguin [4]
Microsoft, Sun, IBM and the war for government desktops [5]